Born Then1868–1889
Life during the Meiji Restoration
Be born in a place it hit, a few years before it began, and see what it did to five ordinary lives.
What it meant for ordinary people
After the shogun fell in 1868, a new government in the emperor's name abolished the samurai class and the domains, created a land tax, universal schooling and conscription, and built railways and factories. Within a generation Japan became an industrial power.
How hard it hits each person in the game (risk of death, of being conscripted, of leaving) comes from our model, estimated from the sources.
Around the same time
- Atlantic slave trade, final decades 1800–1866
- Slavery in the United States 1800–1865
- Slavery in Brazil 1800–1888
- Serfdom in the Russian Empire 1800–1861
- British emigration to the colonies and America 1815–1913
- Cultivation System in Java 1830–1870
- Indian indenture system 1834–1917
- German emigration to the Americas 1840–1893
- Great Famine in Ireland 1845–1852
- Chinese emigration from Guangdong and Fujian 1845–1913
- Third cholera pandemic 1846–1860
- Mexican–American War 1846–1848
- Taiping Rebellion 1850–1864
- Victorian gold rush 1851–1869
- Irish emigration after the Famine 1852–1913
- Crimean War 1853–1856
- Third plague pandemic 1855–1930
- Indian Rebellion of 1857 1857–1858
- French conquest of Vietnam 1858–1887
- American Civil War 1861–1865
- January Uprising 1863–1864
- Paraguayan War (War of the Triple Alliance) 1864–1870
- Meiji Restoration 1868–1889
- Polish emigration "za chlebem" 1870–1913
- Persian famine of 1870–1872 1870–1872
- Franco-Prussian War 1870–1871
- Long Depression 1873–1879
- Reforms of King Chulalongkorn 1874–1910
- Northern Chinese Famine 1876–1879
- Great Famine of 1876–1878 1876–1878