Junichiro Koizumi (小泉 純一郎, Koizumi Jun'ichirō?, born January 8, 1942) is a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 2001 to 2006. He retired from politics when his term in parliament ended.
Widely seen as a maverick leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), he became known as an economic reformer, focusing on Japan's government debt and the privatization of its postal service. In 2005, Koizumi led the LDP to win one of the largest parliamentary majorities in modern Japanese history.
Koizumi also attracted international attention through his deployment of the Japan Self-Defense Forces to Iraq. His visits to Yasukuni Shrine led to diplomatic tensions with neighboring China and South Korea.
Since 1972, Koizumi is the only Prime Minister to have served more than five years in office. Until Naoto Kan, none of his successors were able to keep the office for more than one year.
Koizumi is a third-generation politician. His father, Junya Koizumi, was director general of the Japan Defense Agency and a member of the Diet. His grandfather, Koizumi Matajirō, was Minister of Posts and Telecommunications under Prime Ministers Hamaguchi and Wakatsuki and an early advocate of postal privatization. See Koizumi family.
Morihiro Hosokawa (細川 護煕, Hosokawa Morihiro?, born January 14, 1938) is a Japanese politician who was the 79th Prime Minister of Japan from August 9, 1993 to April 28, 1994. His coalition was the first non-Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government since 1955.
Hosokawa Morihiro was born in Tokyo as the eldest son of Marquis Morisada Hosokawa, the head of the Hosokawa clan. He is the grandson of former Japanese Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe. Owing to his birth, he was born a marquis, but lost the title in 1947 at the age of nine when the kazoku, or peerage was abolished by the American occupation government.
He received his LL.B. from Sophia University in 1961. After working for the newspaper the Asahi Shimbun as journalist for several years, he was elected to the House of Councillors of Japan as a member of the LDP in 1971, representing Kumamoto Prefecture.
After serving two terms in the National Diet, he left in 1983 to become the governor of Kumamoto, where he served until 1991.
In 1992, he announced that he could no longer stand the corruption in the LDP and left in order to found the reformist Japan New Party (JNP).
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977) was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King".
Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, Presley moved to Memphis, Tennessee, with his family at the age of 13. He began his career there in 1954, working with Sun Records owner Sam Phillips, who wanted to bring the sound of African American music to a wider audience. Accompanied by guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, Presley was the most important popularizer of rockabilly, an uptempo, backbeat-driven fusion of country and rhythm and blues. RCA Victor acquired his contract in a deal arranged by Colonel Tom Parker, who would manage the singer for over two decades. Presley's first RCA single, "Heartbreak Hotel", released in January 1956, was a number one hit. He became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll with a series of network television appearances and chart-topping records. His energized interpretations of songs, many from African American sources, and his uninhibited performance style made him enormously popular—and controversial. In November 1956, he made his film debut in Love Me Tender.
Shinzō Abe (安倍 晋三, Abe Shinzō?, [abe ɕinzoː] ( listen); born 21 September 1954) was the 90th Prime Minister of Japan, elected by a special session of the National Diet on 26 September 2006. He was Japan's youngest post–World War II prime minister and the first born after the war. Abe served as prime minister for nearly twelve months, before resigning on 12 September 2007. He was replaced by Yasuo Fukuda, beginning a string of Prime Ministers who could not keep the office for more than one year.
Abe was born in Nagato and soon moved to Tokyo. He attended Seikei elementary school and Fuku Yu high school. He studied political science at Seikei University, graduating in 1977. He later moved to the United States and studied "English for foreign students" and political science at the University of Southern California. In April 1979, Abe began working for Kobe Steel. He left the company in 1982 and pursued a number of governmental positions including executive assistant to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, private secretary to the chairperson of the LDP General Council, and private secretary to the LDP secretary-general.