Japan 
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SOURCE: New York Times
3/5/2023
Can Japan-Korea Relations Resolve Historical Disputes?
The government of South Korea has dropped its demand for Japanese companies to pay victims of forced labor during World War II. Many Koreans have called the concession a national humiliation, and some surviving victims say they won't accept compensation from Korean sources.
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12/4/2022
How Ambassador Joseph Grew Tried to Prevent the Pacific War
by Steve Kemper
Caught between Japanese militarism and the State Department's inflexibility, Joseph C. Grew worked for a decade as the U.S. Ambassador to Japan to try to avert a war he saw looming long before Pearl Harbor.
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5/30/2021
The War Beat, Pacific: How the American News Media Went to War Against Japan
by Steven Casey
Censorship, technological limitations, and competition with news from Europe in World War II made the early part of the Pacific theater a "shrouded war," but not for lack of effort by war journalists.
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SOURCE: New York Times
1/7/2021
South Korean Court Orders Japan to Pay Compensation for Wartime Sexual Slavery
A South Korean court ordered the Japanese government to pay direct restitution to 12 women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military. Japan has rejected the court's authority.
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SOURCE: New York Times
12/3/2020
He Escaped Death as a Kamikaze Pilot. 70 Years Later, He Told His Story.
"As the generation who lived through the war fades away, Japan’s opposing political sides are vying to reinterpret the kamikaze for a public still divided over the conflict’s legacy."
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8/7/2020
Hiroshima (1953, Hideo Sekigawa)
View a segment from, and read about, Hideo Sekigawa's 1953 film "Hiroshima."
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SOURCE: The New York Times
8/6/2020
Witnessing Nuclear Carnage, Then Devoting Her Life to Peace
Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima 75 years ago this month, has used the power of her personal story to try to rid the world of nuclear weapons.
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SOURCE: New York Times
8/6/2020
After Atomic Bombings, These Photographers Worked Under Mushroom Clouds
Photographs commissioned by Japanese newspapers in the aftermath of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were suppressed by American occupation authorities in both countries. A new book offers Americans a new opportunity to grasp the physical and human toll of nuclear weapons.
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8/9/2020
75 Years Later, Purple Hearts Made for an Invasion of Japan are Still Being Awarded
by D.M. Giangreco
There has been much debate about how close the United States was to victory in the Pacific before the atomic bombs were dropped 75 years ago this week. But in 1945, the military ordered so many Purple Heart medals in anticipation of an invasion of Japan that medals from that supply are still being awarded today.
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8/9/2020
Unconditional Surrender: The Domestic Politics of Victory in the Pacific
by Marc Gallicchio
The terms on which the United States pressed Japan for surrender were shaped by American domestic politics; New Deal Democrats and their liberal allies succeeded in convincing Harry Truman that it was necessary to dramatically rebuild Japan's society along more social-democratic lines.
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SOURCE: Stars and Stripes
8/4/2020
‘Irresistible Weapon’: Historians Say American History Oversimplifies Atomic Bombings On Japan
Alex Wellerstein, a historian of science at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., author and blogger on atomic bomb history, said time has smoothed the wrinkles and simplified the facts that are often taught about the first and, so far, only wartime use of atomic weapons.
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SOURCE: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
8/3/2020
What Europeans Believe about Hiroshima and Nagasaki—and Why it Matters
A European's belief that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a military necessity that ultimately saved lives correlates with less acceptance of nuclear disarmament. History is important for citizens' ability to judge issues related to the dangers of nuclear weapons.
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SOURCE: Minneapolis Star-Tribune
7/28/2020
New Statues Stoke Sensitivity Between South Korea, Japan
A pair of new statues in South Korea of a man kneeling in front of a girl symbolizing a victim of sexual slavery by Japan's wartime military is the latest subject of diplomatic sensitivity between the countries, with Tokyo's government spokesperson questioning whether the male figure represents the Japanese prime minister.
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8/9/2020
Did the Atomic Bomb End the Pacific War? – Part II
by Paul Ham
Japan's surrender was hastened by imminent invasion by the Soviet Red Army, a crippling US naval blockade and conventional bombing, and a diplomatic promise to protect the Japanese Emperor from execution, argues Paul Ham. Granting undue credit to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki excuses atrocity.
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8/2/2020
Did the Atomic Bomb End the Pacific War? – Part I
by Paul Ham
Many people, including historians, believe that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused Japan's unconditional surrender, saved a million American lives, and was the least morally repellent way to end World War II. Paul Ham contends that none of this is true.
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SOURCE: Yonhap News Agency
4/29/2020
Late 'Comfort Woman' Recognized for Lifelong Human Rights Activities with Amnesty Award
Kim Bok-dong, a former sex slavery victim-turned human rights activist received a posthumous award from Amnesty International.
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4/5/2020
The Atomic Bomb, War Room Intrigue and Emperor Hirohito's Decision to Surrender
by David Dean Barrett
The record of the Imperial Conferences makes clear two salient facts: that Emperor Hirohito ended the war, and he ended it because of the atomic bomb.
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SOURCE: TIME
3/24/2020
Have the Olympics Ever Been Canceled? Here's the History
Since the first modern Olympic Games were held in 1896, only three have been abandoned.
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SOURCE: CNN
3/8/2020
History's Deadliest Air Raid Happened in Tokyo During World War II and You've Probably Never Heard of It
With a death toll as high as 100,000 people, mostly civilians, the firebombing of Tokyo on March 10th, 1945 should be a more widely-known part of World War II history.
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SOURCE: New York Times
3/9/2020
‘We Hated What We Were Doing’: Veterans Recall Firebombing Japan
American airmen who took part in the 1945 firebombing missions grapple with the particular horror they witnessed being inflicted on those below.