Introduction To This Blog System

                                                                                                                                                 

Image used by permission

This is my main blog and all new postings are made here. Postings may be later combined into a compound posting on this blog. Many of the postings concern my observations in various branches of science, but there are also many on technology, religion, economics and, general world issues.

Blogs are organized to be read from top to bottom like a book. There is a list of the postings on each blog to the right of the blog, but you have to click on the months shown. Please use this listing to verify that you have seen all of the postings on the blog. The usual pace of this blog is 1-3 new postings per week.

 

I would really like to thank everyone who reads any of these blogs for your interest.

 

SCIENCE WRITING

 

Most of the postings on this blog are visits to various places around the world, and articles about such topics as history and religion. But much of the writing is about science. I do not write about what is already known but only if I can write something new, or at least a new way of looking at things. If the title of a posting has an asterisk* after it, that means that the posting has already been moved to it's permanent position and will later be deleted from here.

 

If you would like a quick background in the science and mathematics that everyone should really know in the 21st Century, the posting "Scientific Literacy" provides this in about a hundred paragraphs. Similarly, "The Way Things Work" provides a quick background in everyday technology.

 

I am a Christian and I want to show that belief in God is not unscientific at all. I was interested in science long before I was interested in religion, and have never had any trouble believing that God created everything.

 

There are five major scientific theories, each arranged in the form of a textbook. The first four of the following five are on this blog.

 

"The Theory Of Stationary Space" is my cosmological theory of how so much revolves around time being explained by us being in four-dimensional space, with the dimension that we cannot access being perceived as time. This is my version of string theory, with matter actually being strings in four dimensions rather than particles in three dimensions. Everything is ultimately based on negative and positive electric charges, with energy being able to overcome the laws of attraction and repulsion of electric charges. No one has ever explained exactly what time is, and a myriad of explanations of other things fall right into place around it.

 

"The Flow Of Information Through The Universe" is about how so much can be explained by seeing how there is a limited amount of information, and it must be the same information that constructs the highest levels as the lowest levels. A ready example is how the orbits of planets around the sun is based on the orbitals of electrons around the nucleus, in the atoms of which the sun and planets are composed. This concept is extremely useful because, understanding this, we can study things that we cannot directly see by analyzing things that we can see because all must be built on the same information.

 

"The Theory Of Complexity" is about what information actually is, how energy and information is really the same thing, and how we see the universe as we do because of our perspective of being at a higher level of information than our inanimate surroundings.

 

"The Lowest Information Point" is about how, since information and energy is really the same thing and the universe always seeks the lowest energy state, it also always seeks the "Lowest Information Point". So much is explained by how the universe prefers equalities to inequalities and related ratios where the numerator of one ratio is also the denominator of the other. This explains so much from why dust particles are as big as they to why the planets and stars are the scale that they are.

 

"The Story Of Planet Earth", on the geology blog, is about how virtually every major feature of the earth's surface, both on land and seafloor, can be explained by lines of magma emergence from below that were affected by the landing of three Continental Asteroids. Many people believe that land originated from a past "super-continent", but there is no explanation of where it came from.

 

There are a few of what we could call "minor" theories, where there is not as much written as with the major theories. On this blog, there is "How Biology And Human Life Fits Into Cosmology". On the meteorology and biology blog, there is my theory of the nature of water, "Water Made Really Simple".

 

There are compound postings about science which are groupings of writing about a certain topic.

 

Scientific compound postings include, "Computer Science", "Atomic Science", "Measurement", "A Celebration Of The Inverse Square Law", "Our Solar System", "Mind-Bending Cosmology", "The Configuration Of The Solar System Made Really Simple", "In Appreciation Of Electrons", "The Science Of Human Society " and "Orbital And Escape Velocities And Impacts from Space".

 

Compound postings about history and the world include "The House Of Holy Wisdom, Where The Modern World Began", "Niagara Stories", "Economics", "How History Repeats Itself", "The Meaning Of Freedom", "The Western Hemisphere", "Our Language" and, "America And The Modern World Explained By Way Of Paris".

 

There are two compound postings about prophecies and the Bible. There is "The Aztec Prophecy" than, for prophecies that are directly made in the Bible there is "New Insight Into Bible Prophecy".

 

"Investigations" is the compound posting that is a collection of any posting about an investigation.

 

The rest of the postings are individual postings. For more detailed information about this blog, see the posting "About This Blog". For general topics of conversation, see "Thoughts And Observations", on the world and economics blog.  

Other Blogs And Books

                                                                                             

Lights at night 

Here is a quick look at my other blogs before you start this one.

On this blog, you can see a list of all postings by clicking on the year or month to the right. But on the topical blogs, that is not the case. If you click on a year or month on those blogs, it will display the postings themselves, but the list on the right will still only show those postings that were added most recently.

To access a list of all postings on those blogs, it is necessary to click on the arrow in front of the year or month in question.

http://www.markmeekeconomics.blogspot.com/ is about economics, history and, general human issues.

http://www.markmeekprogress.blogspot.com/ concerns progress in technology and ideas.

http://www.markmeekearth.blogspot.com/ is my geology and global natural history blog for topics other than glaciers. My natural history blogs concerning the impact of glaciers is http://www.markmeekworld.blogspot.com/ .

http://www.markmeekniagara.blogspot.com/ is about new discoveries concerning natural history in the general area of Niagara Falls.

http://www.markmeeklife.blogspot.com/ is my observations concerning meteorology and biology.

http://www.markmeekphysics.blogspot.com/ is my blog about physics and astronomy.

http://www.markmeekcosmology.blogspot.com/ is my version of string theory that solves many unsolved mysteries about the underlying structure and beginning of the universe.

http://www.markmeekpatterns.blogspot.com/ details my work with the fundamental patterns and complexity that underlies everything in existence.

 http://www.markmeekreligion.blogspot.com/ is my religion blog.

 http://www.markmeekcreation.blogspot.com/ is proof that there must be a god.

http://www.markmeekphotos.blogspot.com/ is my travel photos of Europe.

On my photo blogs, Blogspot will not hold all of the photos in each blog in a straight line. To see all of the photos, you must click on the bottom posting listed on the right at the top of the blog after seeing all that there are in the initial showing. The last posting in the North America blog should be "Tijuana, Mexico" and the last posting in the Europe blog should be "Notre Dame Cathedral Door And Arc De Triomphe, Paris". Each photo in the photo blogs can be clicked on to enlarge it to full screen.

My autobiography is http://www.mark-meek.blogspot.com/

My books can be seen at http://www.bn.com/ http://www.amazon.com/ or, http://www.iuniverse.com/ just do an author search for "Mark Meek".   

Donald I

On June 14 there will be protests in cities across America against Donald Trump taking on the powers of a king. It just happens to be Donald Trump's birthday.

I am usually a Democrat but I know that history is a powerful force and Donald Trump has history 100% on his side. 

We saw in the compound posting "America And The Modern World Explained By Way Of Paris", December 2015, that the Republican side of America is really the continuation of the French Bourbon Dynasty. This dynasty was America's first ally and helped it to gain independence. But Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette were later overthrown and guillotined in the French Revolution of 1789.

The protestors on 'No Kings' Day will be reenacting the movement of the revolutionaries in the French Revolution. Donald Trump's monarchy side has already staged what I call America's "Reverse Bastille" Day. The signature event of the French Revolution was the Storming of the Bastille, which was an armory and prison. Donald Trump's version of it was the Storming of the Capitol, on January 6. It was ultimately successful as Donald Trump got a second term.

Let's review what we saw last week about Donald Trump decorating the Oval Office to look like Versailles, which was the royal court at the time of the revolution.

I read a really interesting article that Donald Trump is emulating the Sun King, Louis XIV of the French Bourbon Dynasty, and restyling the Oval Office to resemble the Palace of Versailles. Also that a room in his Florida mansion is being designed to resemble the famous Hall of Mirrors, in Versailles. 

The article is by Slate, and I read it in Yahoo! News. The article is titled "One Of Trump's Weirdest Obsessions Is Spiraling Out Of Control". But it isn't weird at all.

We saw in "The Theory Of Kings", April 2022, that Donald Trump is really a king. We haven't done away with monarchy at all. We just don't usually call them kings anymore. Monarchy is the way that things have been done for thousands of years and that is not going to change overnight.

We saw in "America And The Modern World Explained By Way Of Paris", December 2015, that America's Republicans are actually the continuation of the French Bourbon Dynasty. It was the final Bourbon King and Queen that was the first nation to give America diplomatic recognition and helped it to gain independence.

Yokohama

Yokohama is within the greater Tokyo area, and is considered as Japan's second city. I see Yokohama as replacing Nagasaki, that we visited in "Japan's Window On The World". Nagasaki was Japan's primary port when the country was mostly closed to the outside world, the only port where selected foreigners were allowed to trade. Yokohama has become the primary port since the change in that policy. These three images of the port area of Yokohama are from Google Earth.

Yokohama is also a popular brand of tires that is often seen in auto racing. Image from the Wikipedia article "Yokohama Rubber Company".

My image.

Many Chinese people came and opened businesses in Yokohama, and the result is an impressive Chinatown, in the downtown area near the docks. These six images are from Google Street View. The writing is mostly Chinese.

One of the most recognizable sights is the Yokohama Landmark Tower. These three images are from Google Street View.

Here are some views of the downtown Yokohama area, starting inside the Yokohama Landmark Tower, and some views seen from inside it. The first six images are from Google Earth.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can go onto the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >. After clicking the up arrow you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, of you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.4548709,139.6308863,3a,75y,197.65h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1svJ23E4xxWzEcxFcO8shrHw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DvJ23E4xxWzEcxFcO8shrHw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D194.53418%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

There is also the Yokohama Marine Tower. Two images from Google Street View.

Here is an area with a lot of stores, called Isezakicho, built along a waterway. This is similar to Dotonbori, in Osaka, but this is a shopping area, while Dotonbori is an entertainment district. Four images from Google Earth and Street View.

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.441729,139.6295034,3a,75y,70.14h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sXgGEZ-7TeyQAAAQvOvGSkQ!2e0!3e11!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DXgGEZ-7TeyQAAAQvOvGSkQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D66.08511%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

The following scenes are in a district, known as Shin-Yokohama.

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.5094639,139.6188337,3a,75y,259.79h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sFJWmLW9xljJESbILEmxuMg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DFJWmLW9xljJESbILEmxuMg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D257.5218%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

This is a residential area, that is a long way from the city center.

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.4157404,139.5175469,3a,75y,142h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s4XPv_UY4MRugO7e0nTwsew!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D4XPv_UY4MRugO7e0nTwsew%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D142.5%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Here is another residential area, some distance from the city center.

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.5073134,139.6286062,3a,75y,34h,87t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sAiCi1Hg5fjud6PZpX8x3nw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DAiCi1Hg5fjud6PZpX8x3nw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D34.500004%26pitch%3D-3%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Apocalyptic Developments

This is about the Apocalypse as described in the parallel postings on this blog, "The End Of The World As We Know It" and "Inducing The Apocalypse".

Spending on armaments is greatly increasing in many countries of the world, driven by the war in Ukraine. Mark Rutte, Secretary General of NATO and former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, recently called for a "quantum leap" in defense spending, while speaking in London, because "Russia may attack in five years". Donald Trump has long been demanding that the member countries of NATO virtually double their defense spending, even threatening to allow Russia to attack those that don't.

As for the mass shooting in Austria, remember that we saw in "The End Of The World As We Know It" that there will be people in the Last Days suffering from "uncontrollable fits of rage". There was no description for a gun massacre in biblical times. The invention of gunpowder was in the distant future. But this perfectly fits the description of a modern senseless gun massacre.

The Power Of Dropouts

The latest name in the digital field is Lucy Guo. What I find interesting is that she is yet another college dropout, not a graduate but a dropout. Why is it that the computer industry has been made by dropouts, rather than graduates?

THE BENEFIT OF INDIVIDUALISM

Have you ever noticed something about the people who are always in the news for making the modern economy? I mean Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Elon Musk and so on. Generally college students who come up with a brilliant idea, drop out of college, and end up with their name in the news all the time and more money than they could ever count.

I notice a couple of things that they seem to have in common that I have never seen documented.

1) They have never served in the military.

2) They have not had much involvement in team sports.

Coming up with new ideas requires individualism. If one thinks like everybody else then they won't notice the things that everybody else didn't notice. There is a lot of emphasis nowadays on being a "team player" but being part of a team, as positive as it might sound, inevitably reduces the individualism that is necessary to come up with breakthrough new ideas.

As for dropping out of college the one disadvantage of a formal education is that it inevitably means learning to think like everyone else. Many people who come up with breakthrough new ideas or discoveries have been largely self-educated.

Countries with a Protestant cultural background, northern Europe and the U.S., have created the modern world because the individualism and think-for-yourself mentality of Protestants is ideal for coming up with new ideas and discoveries. It is no coincidence that the Reformation was followed by the Industrial Revolution. 

Modern democracy, where anyone can run for office and anyone can vote for whoever they want, is 100% a Protestant development. The traditionally Protestant dim view of the world opens the mind to seek better ways of doing things. If someone has too much respect for things as they are they will be less likely to notice better ways of doing things.

History is so often made by radicals who turn out to be right. The way to make history is usually not to follow the crowd but to sense when NOT to follow the crowd. This is the power of Individualism. 

So it is dropouts who come up with the new ideas, because they have gained enough knowledge to come up with the ideas, but have not gone to school long enough to learn to think like everyone else. Then they let the graduates manage the companies that they have created.

Japan And Buffalo NY

A world-changing event in history really requires some analysis. It is the U.S. naval mission to Japan in 1852. It was intended to force Japan open to trade with the U.S. But there are just so many questions about it.

First, unlike European nations, the United States was not a colonial power. It opposed colonialism. The Philippines would become a quasi-colony of the U.S., after it was inherited following the Spanish-American War, but that was nearly fifty years later.

Second, Japan was an isolated and feudal country, or at least that was the way it was usually perceived, and it wanted to keep it that way. What would Japan have to trade, in 1852, that would interested the U.S. so much? It didn't have significant manufacturing of goods to export, and it wasn't known for resources that could be traded for imports. Neither was it known for spices or any specialized agricultural products, such as tea or cacao, that could be exported.

Third, as far as the situation in the U.S., this did not take place during the "Gilded Age" when there were wealthy industrialists seeking either markets, resources or, labor. That era was decades away. In 1852, the Civil War was still ahead and it was not even certain that the union would hold together. It becomes difficult to understand what sense this adventure to the other side of the world could make.

Fourth, The U.S. had just gained, by way of the Mexican War, the vast territories of the west. With all of that to be explored and settled, and all of the resources that it contained, why would the U.S. need to send this expensive mission to the other side of the world to force a feudal country to open to trade? It could not be a need for laborers from Asia because there were settlers from China, which was much more populous than Japan. In 1882 a law was actually passed actually banning immigration from China.

Japan was closed because, with all of the foreign ships seen passing by, it considered outsiders as barbarians and was wary of being made into a colony. It had the historical memories of two attempted invasions by the Mongols. But it didn't want to be completely isolated. There was one thing that it had a voracious appetite for from the outside world. That one thing was knowledge.

The leaders of Japan knew that the outside world was making progress. They realized that cutting Japan off from that progress would only make it more vulnerable. There had been a policy of acquiring knowledge for quite some time, known as Rangaku. The only westerners that were allowed to land by ship were the Dutch, and they were initially only allowed one trip per year. Actually, there was a law that no foreign ships could land in Japan at all but an artificial island, called Dejima, was created at Nagasaki for the Dutch to land on.

The Japanese sought all the knowledge that they could get from their Dutch visitors. They had many Dutch books about science, technology and, world geography translated. The Dutch brought all manner of technical devices to Japan, from machines and clocks, to telescopes and microscopes.

As a result of this U.S. naval mission, Japan did open up and set about modernization but it would bring very wide-reaching and unexpected changes to the world.

In Japan the change would bring the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate and restore the emperor to full power. This is known as the Meiji Restoration. Kyoto had been the capital of Japan for a thousand years but, in the sign of the new era the emperor chose to move the capital to Tokyo, where the shogunate which held the real power had been based although the emperor ruled from Kyoto, and that is why Tokyo is the great city that it is today.

Russia had the potential to be a great naval power but was hindered in that it lacked a port that was free of ice all year. Before the development of modern China, in the final years of the Qing Dynasty, Russia leased a naval base from China. But nearby Japan felt threatened by the arrangement and a naval battle ended up being fought over this location that changed the course of the world. The naval battle in 1905 between Japan and Russia, as well as a great battle on land, would bring major changes to the world.

It led to the rise of Japan as a world power. But this would put it technologically ahead of it's Asian neighbors. The Second World War in the Pacific, as well as the far-reaching changes that followed the war, would not have happened without this. There would have been no attack on Pearl Harbor and no dropping of atomic bombs. This battle can also be considered as the beginning of modern naval warfare.

It weakened the Romanov Dynasty in Russia, opening the way for the October Revolution to succeed twelve years later. The immediate result of this lost battle was the 1905 Revolution. It didn't topple the Romanov Dynasty but two years after that, Lenin, Stalin and, Trotsky met in London to plan the coming revolution.

Without this 1905 naval battle, the October Revolution likely would not have succeeded even if it had happened. This would probably have meant no Communism and the very different course of the Twentieth Century that would have brought about.

We can scarcely imagine what the world might be like today had there not been this 1905 battle that is really not well-known, and wouldn't have happened without Japan being forced open by this U.S. naval mission, after which it set about modernization. Without Germany and Austria-Hungary taking this battle as a sign of the weakness of the Romanov position, the First World War might never have happened.

Since the Second World War sprang from the First, that wouldn't have happened either. Since the development of nuclear weapons was spurred by the Second World War we might not have those, or nuclear power at all. Since it was the changes brought about by the world wars that ended the colonial era, there seems to be no reason why it wouldn't have continued until today.

The relationship between the races would be different. The white race had largely convinced the world, as well as itself, that it was the superior race. But the hideous slaughter of World War One, which almost exclusively involved the white race, began to cast doubt on that. All races have shown themselves to be capable of barbarity but this was unlike anything the world had seen before.

But that brings us back to why the forcing of Japan open in the first place was necessary or how it could really be beneficial to the U.S. The mission had been ordered by a little-known U.S. president named Millard Fillmore, who was never actually elected as president. He had been vice-president and became president upon the death of Zachary Taylor. He did not even get the nomination of his party for the following election. Millard Fillmore is remembered today primarily around Buffalo, where a hospital and a main avenue are named for him. This image, from Google Street View, is of the statue of Millard Fillmore at Buffalo City Hall.

The Buffalo connection can be seen in that Commodore Matthew Perry was chosen to lead the naval mission to Japan. He was the younger brother of Oliver Hazard Perry, who was a hero of the War of 1812 in the Buffalo area and today has a housing development named for him.

The opening of Japan would likely have eventually happened in time anyway but Millard Fillmore completely changed the world by sending this mission, if only it was clearer why.

But maybe a look at what Millard Fillmore did before he became president might provide an answer. We know that while it might have been difficult to see a basis for trade with Japan that would justify the naval mission that was sent, what Japan had long sought from the outside world was knowledge. Just as soon as it was opened up by force it began sending students abroad to study, although not to America as it was by then preoccupied with it's Civil War.

Before becoming president, Millard Fillmore had founded a university. He had been the chancellor of the university, and a teacher there. The only conclusion that I can come to is that filling his university with eager Japanese students is at least a major part of the reason for this mission to Japan in 1852. That makes more sense than any other reason. It was the university recruiting drive that really changed the world.

This is Millard Fillmore's university today, the University of Buffalo known in local parlance simply as UB. There are actually two separate campuses. This is the older South Campus. There is also the larger North Campus, in Amherst NY. Two images from Google Earth.

In the Twentieth Century the history of the expedition sent by Millard Fillmore to Japan repeated itself, although on more peaceful terms. In 1972, U.S. President Richard Nixon visited China. This changed the dynamics of the whole world and is certainly the most important event of the Nixon Presidency. Up to that point the U.S. and China didn't even have diplomatic relations. It opened China up to trade as had earlier been done with Japan and now "Made in China" is to be seen everywhere.

But both were ultimately reenactments of the westward voyage of Christopher Columbus, seeking trade with India. The natives of the Western Hemisphere were called Indians because he mistakenly thought that he had landed in India.

Don't Forget The Mongols

Asia is a vast continent that is home to well over half of the world's population. Of every 25 people about 15 are in Asia. It is also very diverse and it may seem that events in the different parts of Asia have little to do with each other. 

But there is one common element to most of Asia, and also far-eastern Europe. That is the history of the Mongols. This affects, for a few examples, the relationships between Russia and China and between Russia and Ukraine, and also relationships involving North Korea and Japan. Far to the south and west it affects the relationships between India and Pakistan and Afghanistan, and also between Iran and the Arab countries.

Here is a link to "Why We Should Understand The Mongols".

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2016/05/why-we-should-understand-mongols.html?m=0

Japan's Window On The World

Yokohama is Japan's primary port as Japan is open to the world. Nagasaki was it's predecessor when Japan was more closed.

The city of Nagasaki, on the southernmost Japanese island of Kyushu, is the country's natural port. Nagasaki faces toward the great Chinese city of Shanghai, about 750 km away. Nagasaki was where Portuguese ships made contact with Japan, in the Sixteenth Century, and regular trading began. The Portuguese were also looking to spread Catholicism, and Nagasaki became a stronghold of the Jesuits.

(Note-I have wondered why Portuguese is the only European nationality that uses the suffix -ese to denote nationality. Other Europeans use -ish, such as Spanish, British, Irish, Polish. Some Europeans use -an, such as Belgian, German, Norwegian and, Italian. Is this somehow a result of Portugal being the first Europeans to have extensive contact with the Japanese)?

There were also many Chinese traders in Nagasaki, and there is still a Chinatown in the city. Image from Google Street View.

But this was the imperial era and  Japan was also wary of possible western plans to make it into a colony. Laws, known as Sakoku, were made which strictly limited foreign entry into Japan. A person who left Japan could never return, without permission of the Tokugawa Shogunate. But Japan also wanted some trade, and to keep up with progress in the outside world, and Nagasaki became it's "window on the world".

An artificial island was created in Nagasaki, known as Dejima, and trading was done from there. Only ships from China, Korea and, the Netherlands were allowed to trade. To discourage any imperial designs that westerners may have had, British, French, Spanish, Portuguese or, Russian ships were not allowed to land. It was largely Dutch books that brought knowledge of the outside world to Japan.

Dejima is a section of Nagasaki today. Image from the Wikipedia article "Dejima".

Trade was not done strictly at Nagasaki, and Japan sent a ship of it's own to visit the Spanish colony of Mexico, but Nagasaki was where most trading and contact took place.

But the Tokugawas were still wary of the intentions of the foreigners. They thought that missionaries spreading Christianity was a preparation for the making of Japan into a colony, especially with the Catholic emphasis on leadership from the Vatican. When the Tokugawa Shogunate no longer needed the alliances of Catholic daimyo (feudal lords), they began an active persecution of Catholicism.

In 1614, Catholicism was banned in Japan. Thousands were killed and some left to live in other parts of Asia. This is what made the Protestant Dutch the favored European traders, instead of the Catholic Portuguese.

The Tokugawa Shogunate was especially wary of the Spanish and Portuguese, with their emphasis on Catholicism directed by the pope from Rome. Japan was well-aware of Spanish and Portuguese conquests and colonization in the western hemisphere.

On the other side of the world, U.S. president Millard Fillmore would very much have liked to end Japan's isolationist policy and sent a fleet led by Commodore Matthew Perry to open up Japan to trade. Commodore was a U.S. Navy rank that is not used any more.

I see this expedition as having a lot in common with the European settlement of the western hemisphere in that it had very long-term effects on the world. The contact between Europeans and the western hemisphere was known as the Columbian Exchange. Just in terms of crops, the Columbian Exchange brought apples, bananas, oranges and coffee to the western hemisphere and tomatoes, potatoes, corn and, chocolate to Europe. These new foods, particularly potato which can feed a lot of people per unit of cultivated area, enabled Europe to undergo the population growth which led to it having such an enormous influence on the world.

This mission to Japan was the beginning of a similar bridge between east and west. In Japan, it let the country know that it was technologically behind the west, and vulnerable as a result. It helped to initiate the series of events that led to the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the restoration of the real power in the country to the emperor, known as the Meiji Restoration. 

The emperor moved from Kyoto to what had been the coastal village of Edo. This grew into the city of Tokyo, which became the permanent capital of the country. The Samurai as a social class and way of life came to an end. 

Some Samurai withdrew to the northernmost island of Hokkaido, and temporarily set up a state of their own, but were defeated by the emperor's forces. Japan became more open to the world, and Nagasaki again became the center of Catholicism in the country.

This far-reaching cross-exchange, similar in nature to the Columbian Exchange, is why, all around us today, we see Japanese names like Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Isuzu, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Toshiba, Sony, Panasonic, Yokohama (tires) and, Nintendo. The products made by these Japanese companies are what was brought to the west, in the same way as the crops of the Columbian Exchange.

In modernizing and manufacturing an endless stream of products to sell to the west, Japan also set a precedent for other east Asian nations. It took western technology, and made it it's own, while still remaining Japanese. The same patterns tend to reflect among the east Asian nations, and this path to development has also been followed by China and Korea.

But modern Japan became an imperial power like the westerners that it had earlier had contact with. Japan was given some formerly German islands in the Pacific during World War One, and later followed with conquests in Asia. The 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, to preclude American interference with it's conquests, was very much a mirror-image reflection of the ships led by Commodore Matthew Perry forcing their way into Tokyo Bay more than eighty years before, when Japan did not have the military technology to resist.

One way that I like to explain history is in terms of how ironic it turns out to be. Nagasaki, which has been Japan's open window on the world, when the fleet sent by Millard Fillmore to open all of Japan to trade with the world, ended up being the target of one of the two atomic bombings in a war that was the unforseen consequence of the sending of that fleet.

This is what Nagasaki looks like today. The first five images are from Google Earth and Street View.

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The east Asian nations are sometimes portrayed as rivals in the western press, but closely share the same historical patterns. Look at the similarity of the remaining Samurai of Japan withdrawing to the northern island of Hokkaido, to form their own society, and the Nationalists of China withdrawing to Taiwan following defeat by the Communists, in 1949. 

It is so ironic that North Korea considers it's former occupier of Japan as an enemy because the isolationist and self-sufficiency policy if the Kim Dynasty seem to be a copy of the isolationism of the Tokugawa Shogunate, although Kim Jong Un is more in the mold of an all-powerful emperor. But all of this shutting out the barbarian outside world seems to be rooted in China's Great Wall.

In martial terms, three things that Japan is known for are it's castles and the martial arts of Karate and Judo. 

Karate is actually a development of Okinawa when it was occupied by Japan. I see Japan's approach to the outside world over the last four centuries as beginning with what we could call the Castle Period. This was the time of the Tokugawa Shogunate when the country was like a Japanese castle, surrounded by a moat, into which only a select few were permitted to enter. From the 1930s, as Japan became strong and modern, it embarked on building an empire by force, this could be called the Karate Period. 

Judo, much unlike karate, emphasizes taking an opponent's force and using it against him. This is what Japan perfected in the postwar period, taking what the west does in terms of technology and production, finding a way to do it better or cheaper, and then selling the products back to the west. The "salaryman" became the new Samurai of Japan.

Tokyo

The overthrow of the Shah of Iran, in 1979, was an important time for Japan because it made it's royal family, known as the Yamato Dynasty, the longest-reigning monarchy on earth. The Emperor used to share power with the Shogun, of the Samurai warrior class. Kyoto was the capital of Japan for about a thousand years, but the Tokugawa Shogunate chose to rule from Tokyo, which was then called Edo. Even though the emperor still resided in Kyoto. 

Upon the Meiji Restoration, in the Nineteenth Century, when the position of the emperor was restored to full power, and the shogunate and the Samurai class was abolished, the emperor then also ruled from Tokyo, rather than Kyoto.

The emperor's Imperial Palace was built on the grounds of the old Edo Castle, from where the shogunate had ruled. Some elements of Edo Castle are still there. Following destruction of much of the palace during warfare, a new palace complex was built in the 1960s, while the eastern part of the grounds was named the East Garden.

The following scenes are of the grounds of the Imperial Palace, surrounded by it's moat and the tall buildings of the city. The first image of the Imperial Palace is from Google Street View.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >. After clicking the up arrow you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.685175,139.7527995,3a,75y,180h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-okmHrpsJnl0%2FVqdrOVkYb5I%2FAAAAAAAAC3M%2FKkGBa5J6Qx80WuABcPnBakCNzd18rXj8Q!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2F-okmHrpsJnl0%2FVqdrOVkYb5I%2FAAAAAAAAC3M%2FKkGBa5J6Qx80WuABcPnBakCNzd18rXj8Q%2Fw203-h101-n-k-no%2F!7i8704!8i4352

We can see that Tokyo only became a major city during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, after the Tokugawa Shogunate was based in what had been the village of Edo, and in the Nineteenth Century, after the Meiji Restoration, by it's shrines. The first two of the following images from Google Street View are of the Meiji Shrine, and the third is of the Yasukuni Military Shrine. While built in traditional Japanese style, the shrines do not look extremely old. 

Akasaka Palace was built in 1909. It is used as a guest palace, but Emperor Hirohito once lived there for several years. Contrary to some travel guides, Akasaka Palace is not an exact copy of Buckingham Palace, although the resemblance between the two is striking. Akasaka Palace is not on the grounds of the Imperial Palace, but is not far away. Here are some scenes of the front and back of the palace, from Google Earth and Street View.

This is the buildings of central Tokyo. Six images from Google Earth and Street View.

These three images, of the famous Ginza District, are from Google Street View.

Tokyo has it's version of the Eiffel Tower, Tokyo Tower. Two images from Google Street View.

Then there is the Sky Tree. Four images from Google Earth and Street View. 

But Mount Fuji is the real symbol of Tokyo and of Japan. Image from Google Street View.

One way to see a large city is by way of it's major train stations. The busiest train station in the world is Shinjuku Station. In a visit to Paris, we saw that the Gare du Nord was the busiest train station outside of Japan, but Shinjuku handles even more passengers than that. Shinjuku is built on an area that is believed to be geologically stable, and that is where many of Tokyo's skyscrapers are located. Tokyo had a devastating earthquake in 1923.

This is the tall buildings of Shinjuku. Two images from Google Earth. 

Here are some scenes around Shinjuku, starting in Shinjuku Station:

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.6904283,139.7004694,3a,75y,346.42h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-t8-mWmpCTTo%2FVEZKpDv5YJI%2FAAAAAAAALYc%2FSVAFHzCXBIcpu5pz8noC8vo0sZAP2TskACLIB!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh4.googleusercontent.com%2F-t8-mWmpCTTo%2FVEZKpDv5YJI%2FAAAAAAAALYc%2FSVAFHzCXBIcpu5pz8noC8vo0sZAP2TskACLIB%2Fw203-h101-n-k-no%2F!7i3584!8i1792

There is a gap between the time that passenger trains came into widespread use, and the time when modern architecture appeared. Train stations built during this time are of stone architecture. Tokyo Station is Tokyo's equivalent of Grand Central Station in New York, or St. Pancras Station in London, or Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai, or Union Station in Toronto. Here are some views around Tokyo Station, starting in a mall next to the station.

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.6796074,139.7682316,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sOx_TefEEPgRNAPZQ5BRglA!2e0!3e2!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DOx_TefEEPgRNAPZQ5BRglA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D311.06223%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656

Another major train station, built in traditional style, is Shinagawa Station. Here are some scenes starting there. Some of the scenes are in a nearby aquarium. Emperor Hirohito was an expert in marine biology.

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.628343,139.7382596,3a,75y,85.54h,89.95t,0.29r/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sWMBlDkfbjfpDFYeZWw1kEg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DWMBlDkfbjfpDFYeZWw1kEg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D164.9095%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656

Finally here is the major stadium, known as Tokyo Dome. There is an amusement park and a Japanese-style garden nearby.

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