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This Day in Alternate History Blog
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"Kirishitani in Modern Japan" by Eric Lipps
In 1999: Hideko Cardinal
Tokugawa of Kyoto presided over a Christmas celebration of nearly one million
Japanese Catholics.
Christianity had been introduced into Japan in the sixteenth century. The
shogun Oda Nobunaga (pictured), in particular, had embraced the new faith,
both for the technologies its missionaries brought with them, which included
firearms, and as a political tool against Buddhism. Although Nobunaga never
converted to Christianity, he allowed Christians to proselytize and permitted
the construction of the first Catholic church in Kyoto in 1576, on the site of
the present Watanabe Cathedral.
After his death, some powerful Japanese came to view Christianity not as beneficial but as a threat to the state, and pressed for its restriction or even outright banning. Among them would be Toyotomi Hideyoshi, responsible for the Feb. 5, 1597 massacre of twenty-seven Christians at Nagasaki and a vocal proponent of laws restricting not only Christianity but all contact with the West. Support for such "seclusion laws" remained limited, however, and although some restrictions were imposed beginning in 1614, the Nobunaga Shogunate would lift them four decades later under Oda's great-grandson Toyo Nobunaga. By the end of the Nobunaga shogunate in the late nineteenth century, there would be twenty million Christians in the island nation. At the close of the twentieth, the number would have risen to forty million.
Eric Lipps Guest Historian of Today in Alternate History, a Daily Updating Blog of Important Events In History That Never Occurred Today. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Imagine what would be, if history had occurred a bit differently. Who says it didn't, somewhere? These fictional news items explore that possibility. Possibilities such as America becoming a Marxist superpower, aliens influencing human history in the 18th century and Teddy Roosevelt winning his 3rd term as president abound in this interesting fictional blog.
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