Related Stuff

Articles:

How the Manhattan Project Worked

How Submarines Work

Videos:

Atomic Bomb Explosion

Maps:

North Pacific Ocean

Background. After World War I, Japan's industrial and military power increased, but the modernization of Japanese society caused political conflict. Labor unions, leftists, and liberal political parties called for reforms in government and the economic system. Conservatives feared that such dissent was dangerous to the nation. Ultranationalists and the military scorned Japan's limited democracy, which had been created by the constitution of 1889, and demanded that people give total obedience to the Japanese emperor. Political tensions were made worse by a faltering economy, which neared collapse after the Great Depression began in 1929.

By the early 1930's, Japanese politics and government had become dominated by aggressive militarists who crushed all political opposition. They believed that Japan's future as a military, economic, and political power required territorial expansion in the countries of the western Pacific, especially China. They hoped to establish an empire that would supply the natural resources Japan needed For further industrial development. They also hoped to challenge the dominance of the Western colonial powers in the Far East.