People who live in Japan are ancient descendants of those who lived on the continent of Asia - human history did not begin on the Island of Japan - most likely people arrived into Japan through Korea, Siberia and/or Taiwan/China.

However, traditional Japanese legend maintains that Japan was founded in the 7th century BC by the ancestral Emperor Jimmu. During the 5th and 6th centuries, the Chinese writing system and Buddhism were introduced with other Chinese cultures by way of the Korean peninsula. The emperors were the nominal rulers, but actual power was usually held by powerful court nobles, regents, or shoguns (military governors).

During the 16th century, traders from Portugal, the Netherlands, England, and Spain arrived, as did Christian missionaries. During the early part of the 17th century, Japan's Shogunate suspected that they were actually forerunners of a military conquest by European powers and ultimately barred all relations with the outside world except for severely restricted contacts with Dutch and Chinese merchants at Nagasaki (Dejima). This isolation lasted for 251 years, until Commodore Matthew Perry forced the opening of Japan to the West with the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854.

Within several years, renewed contact with the West profoundly altered Japanese society. The Shogunate was forced to resign, and the emperor was restored to power. The Meiji Restoration of 1868 initiated many reforms. The feudal system was abolished, and numerous Western institutions were adopted, including a Western legal system and government, along with other economic, social and military reforms that transformed Japan into a world power. Japan's new ambitions led to invasion wars that exploited and killed thousands of people in mainland China (1895) and Russia (1905) and led to the annexation by Japan of Korea, Taiwan and other territories.