On This Day
1575 – Sengoku period of Japan: The combined forces of Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu are victorious in the Battle of Nagashino.[1]
The Sengoku period (戦国時代 Sengoku Jidai, “Age of Warring States”; c. 1467 – c. 1600) is a period in Japanese history marked by social upheaval, political intrigue and near-constant military conflict. Japanese historians named it after the otherwise unrelated Warring States period in China.[1] It was initiated by the Ōnin War, which collapsed the Japanese feudal system under the Ashikaga shogunate, and came to an end when the system was re-established under the Tokugawa shogunate by Tokugawa Ieyasu.[2][3]
Summary
During this period, although the Emperor of Japan was officially the ruler of his nation and every lord swore loyalty to him, he was largely a marginalized, ceremonial, and religious figure who delegated power to the shōgun, a noble who was roughly equivalent to a general. In the years preceding this era the Shogunate gradually lost influence and control over the daimyōs (local lords). Although the Ashikaga shogunate had retained the structure of the Kamakura shogunate and instituted a warrior government based on the same social economic rights and obligations established by the Hōjō with the Jōei Code in 1232,[clarification needed] it failed to win the loyalty of many daimyōs, especially those whose domains were far from the capital, Kyoto. Many of these Lords began to fight uncontrollably with each other for control over land and influence over the shogunate. As trade with Ming China grew, the economy developed, and the use of money became widespread as markets and commercial cities appeared. This, combined with developments in agriculture and small-scale trading, led to the desire for greater local autonomy throughout all levels of the social hierarchy. As early as the beginning of the 15th century, the suffering caused by earthquakes and famines often served to trigger armed uprisings by farmers weary of debt and taxes.
The Ōnin War (1467–1477), a conflict rooted in economic distress and brought on by a dispute over shogunal succession, is generally regarded as the onset of the Sengoku period. The “eastern” army of the Hosokawa family and its allies clashed with the “western” army of the Yamana. Fighting in and around Kyoto lasted for nearly 11 years, leaving the city almost completely destroyed. The conflict in Kyoto then spread to outlying provinces.[2][4]
The period culminated with a series of three warlords, Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu, who gradually unified Japan. After Tokugawa Ieyasu’s final victory at the siege of Osaka in 1615, Japan settled down into several centuries of peace under the Tokugawa shogunate.
Read more ->
Born On This Day
1906 – Maria Goeppert Mayer, Polish-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1972)
Maria Goeppert Mayer (June 28, 1906 – February 20, 1972) was a German-born American theoretical physicist, and Nobel laureate in Physics for proposing the nuclear shell model of the atomic nucleus. She was the second woman to win a Nobel Prize in physics, the first being Marie Curie.
A graduate of the University of Göttingen, Goeppert Mayer wrote her doctoral thesis on the theory of possible two-photon absorption by atoms. At the time, the chances of experimentally verifying her thesis seemed remote, but the development of the laser permitted this. Today, the unit for the two-photon absorption cross section is named the Goeppert Mayer (GM) unit.
Maria Goeppert married Joseph Edward Mayer and moved to the United States, where he was an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University. Strict rules against nepotism prevented Johns Hopkins University from taking her on as a faculty member, but she was given a job as an assistant and published a landmark paper on double beta decay in 1935. In 1937, she moved to Columbia University, where she took an unpaid position. During World War II, she worked for the Manhattan Project at Columbia on isotope separation, and with Edward Teller at the Los Alamos Laboratory on the development of the Teller’s “Super” bomb.
After the war, Goeppert Mayer became a voluntary associate professor of Physics at the University of Chicago (where Teller and her husband worked) and a senior physicist at the nearby Argonne National Laboratory. She developed a mathematical model for the structure of nuclear shells, for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963, which she shared with J. Hans D. Jensen and Eugene Wigner. In 1960, she was appointed full professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego.
FYI
9to5Mac: IPad Pro is $249 off, 2019 MacBook Pro hits new all-time lows, and iPhone 8 gets 1-day deal to $330
NPR: Neo-Nazi Who Rammed His Car Into Charlottesville Protesters Gets Life
The Rural Blog: Remembering the Capital Gazette shooting one year later; moment of silence at 2:33 p.m. EDT; Mississippi farmers say chicken processors discriminated, drove them out of business; federal probe seems to lag; Quick hits: New poet laureate is first Native American for the post; Pride event at small-town Ky. library draws opposition and more ->
Smart Brief James daSilva: A Walmart leader’s lessons in being an “Only” in corporate America
The Passive Voice: How Technology Helped Me Cheat Dyslexia and more –
NSFW, Possibly Offensive
Ideas
Instructables Author Spotlight: Random_Canadian
By M. C. Langer: Build a Motorized Dinosaur Using Plastic Trash, in 55 Minutes or Less!
By Teacher Mike: Easy Sheet Metal Flower
By Hey Jude: My First Pet: Caterpillar – Butterfly House (Up-Cycle 2 Fruit Punnets)
Recipes
By Rhonda Chase Designs: Homemade Big Dog Dog Food – for Sensitive Tummies
By Penolopy Bulnick: Milkshake Recipe
By NateBorwick13: Indigo Ice Cream
By JoyanCrafts: Homemade Yogurt Popsicle – Cat Paw
By Luxwebwizard: Surefire Recipe for French Baguettes
By In The Kitchen With Matt: Pizza Monkey Bread
Widget not in any sidebars
Widget not in any sidebars
wikimedia
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for November 26 November 26, 2024Picture of the day Cervus nippon in Halileo's Dacha Nature Reserve, Ternopil Oblast, Ukraine.
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for November 25 November 25, 2024Picture of the day Papaya fruits in a grocery store. Colatina, Espírito Santo, Brazil.