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Before the Meiji Restoration, the city was known as Edo (江戸). The
Tokugawa shogunate was established in 1603 with Edo as its seat of
government (de facto capital). (The emperor's residence, and formal capital,
remained in Kyoto, that city had been the actual capital of Japan until that
time.) In 1868, when the shogunate came to an end, the city was renamed
"Tokyo" which means "Eastern Capital"; during the restoration, the emperor
moved to Tokyo, making the city the formal as well as de facto capital of
Japan.
A major earthquake struck Tokyo in 1923, killing approximately 70,000
people; a massive reconstruction plan was drawn up, but was too expensive to
carry out except in part. Despite this, the city grew until the beginning of
World War II. During the war, Tokyo was heavily bombed, much of the city was
burned to the ground, and its population in 1945 was only half that of 1940.
General Douglas MacArthur established his Occupation headquarters in what
is now the Dai-Ichi Seimei building overlooking the Imperial Palace and, in
the post-war years, and especially stimulated by the Korean War, Japan
experienced an economic miracle that led it from post-war deprivation to
tremendous economic success. In the process, Japan entered and very often
came to dominate a range of industries including steel, shipbuilding,
automobiles, semi-conductors, consumer electronics.
Although the recession following the bursting of the "bubble economy" in
the early 1990s hurt the city, Tokyo has become one of the most dynamic
capital cities on earth. It has a tremendous range of social and economic
activities, with myriad restaurants and clubs, a major financial district,
tremendous industrial strength, a wealth of shops and entertainment
opportunities. The investment boom of the late 1980s is perhaps the greatest
the world has ever known (as judged e.g. by the level of building
expenditures in relation to the size of the economy) and, as a result, Tokyo
has an enormously more modern capital stock (of buildings) than, e.g.,
London or New York.
On March 20, 1995 the city became the focus of international media
attention in the wake of the Aum Shinrikyo cult terrorist organization
attack with Sarin nerve gas on the Tokyo subway system (in the tunnels
beneath the political district of central Tokyo) in which 12 people were
killed and thousands affected.
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