The Empire of Japan was the semi-constitutional monarchy that ruled over Japan from the Meiji Restoration of 3 January 1868 until the adoption of a more democratic constitution of 3 May 1947.
The empire was established amid the Boshin War, when pro-Imperial samurai clans rebelled against the military dictatorship of the Tokugawa Shogunate and brought about direct rule by Emperor Meiji (r. 1867-1912). The Meiji era saw Japan experience rapid modernization in the form of large-scale industrialization and militarization, enabling Japan to transform from an isolationist island nation into a great power within 50 years. Japan became an empire with the annexation of the Ryukyu Kingdom in 1879, which was followed by victory over China in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) and the Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901), the Russian Empire in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), and the German Empire in World War I (1914-1915). Japan assumed control over Taiwan from Qing China in 1895, while Korea became a client state as a result of that same war and was finally annexed by Japan in 1910.
While Japan underwent a degree of Westernization after the Meiji Restoration, especially through the adoption of modern technology and parliamentary democracy, the Japanese people viewed their Emperor as God incarnate and the final political authority. The Japanese also retained their samurai-era militarism, which, infused with Bushido philosophy and Emperor-worship, resulted in the emergence of a violent Japanese imperialism. During the Interwar period of 1918-1939, the Imperial Japanese Army came to dominate Japanese politics, its junior officers regularly staging nationalist coups and assassinations against liberal or moderate governments. The military also provoked the 1931 invasion of Manchuria and the 1937-1945 Second Sino-Japanese War without government authorization, and Japan's international standing was damaged by the military's brutal conduct during the wars with China and its occupation of Korea and Taiwan. This ultimately resulted in a United States-led oil embargo against Japan which, in turn, provoked the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and entry into World War II in December 1941.
From December 1941 into the summer of 1942, the Japanese military staged a series of blitzkrieg offensives across the Asia-Pacific region, conquering the Dutch East Indies, Malaya, Singapore, British Burma, the Philippines, and several Pacific islands. Japanese nationalists established the Imperial Rule Assistance Association (IRAA) as the country's sole political party in order to prosecute the war, instilling Shōwa Statism (a Japanese form of fascism) into the public's wartime mindset. Starting in late 1942, the Allies began to retake lost territory through the United States' "island hopping" campaigns and counteroffensives in Southeast Asia and the East Indies. By August 1945, the Americans captured Iwo Jima and Okinawa, threatening to invade the Japanese mainland. American bombing raids against Japan culminated with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which, together with the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, resulted in Japan's surrender on 15 August 1945. The Allied occupation of Japan resulted in the dismantling of the semi-absolutist imperial system and its replacement with a full constitutional monarchy in 1947; Japan was also demilitarized, although the Japan Self-Defense Forces were established in 1954 with the purpose of national defense.
The Empire of Japan had a population of 105,200,000 people in 1940. Japan proper had 73,114,308 residents, of whom 1,241,315 were Koreans and 22,499 were Taiwanese.
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