The US used military pressure to force Japan to open to foreign trade in the 1850s

Japan’s imperial expansion in Asia set the stage for war with the US

Between 1931 and 1941, Japan seized Manchuria, launched a full-scale war in China and occupied French Indochina, moves that intensified its demand for strategic resources and triggered escalating US-led embargoes—particularly the 1941 oil cutoff—which sharply raised the risk of war between the two countries.

Westerners didn't encounter sushi until the mid-1800s

Japan was rather closed off until the mid-1800s, when Westerners, including Americans, began visiting the country and tasting sushi. But it wasn’t until the 1970s that the food became popular outside of Japan. California, in particular, became an American hub for the food, thanks to its large Japanese immigrant population.

What happened to Americans who were in Japan during Pearl Harbor?

When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941, roughly 10,000 American civilians were stranded in Japanese-occupied territory. Tense diplomatic negotiations eventually secured two prisoner exchanges conducted via ship across 20,000 nautical miles to return nearly 3,000 Allied civilians, while Japanese Americans in North and South America were sent in the opposite direction, many to a country they had never called home.

Japan was an empire from 1868 until 1947

The Empire of Japan began on Jan. 3, 1868, and facilitated rapid modernization. It endured through a period of colonial expansion—including Korea and Taiwan—1930s militarism, and participation in WWII, until Japan’s formal transformation into a constitutional state under the 1947 constitution following Allied occupation.

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

The game turned Japan into a major cultural exporter

“Super Mario Bros.” kicked off decades of cultural ascendancy not only for Nintendo, but for Japan, which grew into one of the world’s major cultural exporters through anime, fashion, and music.

The British Royal Navy—not the US military—enforced the Monroe Doctrine for most of the 19th century

In the early to mid-1800s, the US lacked the ships and military power to prevent European nations from colonizing the Americas. Britain enforced this to protect its commercial interests by keeping rival European powers out of Latin America.

Jefferson’s Lewis and Clark expedition joined the centuries-long hunt for Northwest Passage

For centuries, leaders pursued a direct seafaring trade route from Europe to Asia. Jefferson joined this quest by sending Lewis and Clark west, though they confirmed no such practical interior route existed across the continent.

The Japanese Navy used radio silence and deception to mask its approach

In late November 1941, Japan’s carrier strike force maintained total radio silence while operators back home broadcast normal traffic—creating ambiguity about the location of the fleet. The deception obscured US intelligence and helped create a surprise attack.

The Panama Canal boosted the US as a world power in trade, engineering, and finance

The effort proved the US could achieve grand engineering projects while granting it influence over (and benefitting economically from) a major interoceanic channel and its host country, Panama.

The first atomic bomb used in war destroyed much of the Japanese city of Hiroshima

On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay dropped the Little Boy atomic bomb on Hiroshima—the first combat use of a nuclear weapon. It leveled five square miles and killed tens of thousands, with accounts from both American and Japanese witnesses.

The UK was already in a depression before the US Great Depression took hold

The US Great Depression was felt globally, but the severity and length of different countries’ economic downturns varied. For instance, Japan was the first country to exit its depression.

Tokyo is the world's largest city by population

Home to over 41 million people, the megacity used to be a humble fishing village called Edo. Since Japan opened to foreign trade in the mid-1800s, Tokyo has made significant economic advances and achieved numerous milestones in public transportation, urban planning and culture.

The Compromise of 1850 tried to settle disputes over land gained from Mexico

Territory acquired in the Mexican-American War reignited fierce debates over slavery’s expansion. The Compromise of 1850 aimed to ease tensions by admitting California as a free state and letting other territories decide the issue—but the compromise ultimately failed and helped pave the way to the Civil War.

The GATT and its successor, the WTO, were established to lower trade barriers

Signed in 1947, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade began systematically reducing tariffs and trade barriers among member nations. In 1995, it was replaced by the World Trade Organization, which expanded those rules and established a formal dispute settlement system.

Chef Hanaya Yohei invented modern sushi in the early 1820s

The enterprising chef created nigiri sushi—fresh fish placed on top of vinegared rice balls that are then hand-molded together—as a way to quickly serve fish to busy Edo workers who could take their food to-go.

Madison was America's first president during a formally declared war

During James Madison's presidency, Congress formally declared war on Britain in 1812 over its practice of seizing American sailors, trade restrictions, and repeated violations of US sovereignty—marking the first time a sitting American president led the nation through a declared war.

See a data visualization of the East India Company's trade

This tool visualizes the East India Company’s trade from 1760 to 1834, letting you track shipments of tea, textiles, metals, and more. Users can sort by commodity, origin, destination, and date to see London’s vast imperial supply network that shaped the British Empire.

The commander of the Japanese force at Pearl Harbor speaks on the Merv Griffin show

Mitsuo Fuchida, who led the first wave of the Pearl Harbor attack, converted to Christianity in 1950, after reading the testimony of a former American POW. He later traveled through Japan and the United States, sharing his story and working as a Christian evangelist.

Washington condemned the Boston Tea Party

While he sympathized with the grievances behind it, he placed great importance on private property rights. He viewed the action as vandalism and believed those responsible should compensate the British East India Company.

Presidents now rely on executive agreements instead of formal treaties

Formal treaties—requiring two-thirds Senate approval—have become rare in American foreign policy. Modern presidents increasingly use executive agreements, which don't need congressional consent, allowing faster diplomacy but reducing legislative oversight and transparency.

In 1882, American Express began offering money orders to compete with the US Postal Service

Money orders were American Express' first move into financial services. USPS launched its money order service in 1864 as a way for Civil War soldiers to send money back home. Between the 1880s and 1920s, immigration into the United States surged;the American Express money order service gave immigrants a way to send money to family members living in other countries.

After World War II, pizza took off in the US

Pizzerias opened in cities throughout the 1920s and '30s, especially those with large Italian immigrant populations, but the cuisine didn't take off nationally until after World War II. Some credit that with American soldiers' exposure to the food while stationed in Italy; others point to the invention of the mass-produced gas-fired ovens, which made opening a pizzeria considerably easier. Below is a 1944 clip from the New York Times, the first time the paper mentioned pizza.

The diplomat who implemented Monroe's policy introduced the poinsettia to the United States

Joel Roberts Poinsett, appointed as the first US minister to Mexico in 1825 following the doctrine's announcement, took cuttings of a vibrant Mexican plant called the cuetlaxochitl during his time there. Americans loved the foliage and named it after him.

The first Trader Joe's opened in California in 1967

Joe Coulombe was inspired by his travels outside the United States and wanted to open a store that offered some of the flavors he'd tasted abroad. Now, the store's unique products attract international visitors, who view it as a tourist destination.

Roosevelt formally recognized the Soviet Union in 1933

In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt formally recognized the Soviet Union—ending 16 years of nonrecognition and aiming to improve trade and stabilize relations amid growing global instability.

The United States has had a tumultuous relationship with Cuba since its 1959 revolution, highlighted by a nuclear crisis and a decades-long trade embargo.

The US dollar is the most widely circulated currency in the world, and is involved in nearly 90% of global transactions

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

Volcanic activity may have triggered the Black Death by spewing gases that led to crop failures in Europe, thus forcing the import of grain ships with plague-infested fleas.

The rivalry between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson centered on federalism—the question of how much power the federal government should hold relative to the states.

The Beatles' US label rejected the band's first two singles, 'Please Please Me' and 'From Me to You,' with one executive calling the band 'dead in the water.'

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

Abraham Lincoln was almost assassinated weeks before his inauguration as he traveled from Illinois to DC through Baltimore in 1861; it took two independent claims for Lincoln to be convinced the threat was real

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

Before humans, the Soviet Union and the United States sent animals—including apes, dogs, and cats—to space during the Space Race.

While El Niño moves warm Pacific Ocean waters east along the equator, La Niña moves them west, shifting where rainfall will become more common for months.

See this overview of the firework rules across all 50 states, ranging from a complete ban on non-professional fireworks in Massachusetts to states with more lax rules like Indiana.

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

Sony set the standard for cylinder-shaped batteries when it repurposed manufacturing equipment used to make rolls of magnetic recording tape.

Between 10 million and 50 million people in the US develop rashes from poison ivy, poison sumac, and poison oak each year.