Shimabara Rebellion

The Shimabara Rebellion (島原の乱, Shimabara no ran) was an uprising in southwestern Japan lasting from December 17, 1637 to April 15, 1638, during the Edo period. It largely involved peasants, most of them Catholic Christians.

It was one of only a handful of instances of serious unrest during the relatively peaceful period of the Tokugawa shogunate's rule. In the wake of the Matsukura clan's construction of a new castle at Shimabara, taxes were drastically raised, which provoked anger from local peasants and rōnin (samurai without masters). Religious persecution of the local Catholics exacerbated the discontent, which turned into open revolt in 1637. The Tokugawa Shogunate sent a force of over 125,000 troops to suppress the rebels and, after a lengthy siege against the rebels at Hara Castle, defeated them.

In the wake of the rebellion, the Catholic rebel leader Amakusa Shiro was beheaded and the prohibition of Christianity was strictly enforced. Japan's national seclusion policy was tightened and official persecution of Christianity continued until the 1850s. Following the successful suppression of the rebellion, the daimyo of Shimabara, Matsukura Katsuie, was beheaded for misruling, becoming the one and only daimyo to be beheaded during the Edo period.

True History

True Stories or True Fictions (Ancient Greek: Ἀληθῆ διηγήματα, Alēthē diēgēmata; Latin: Vera Historia) is a parody of travel tales, by the Greek-speaking Assyrian author Lucian of Samosata, the earliest known fiction about travelling to outer space, alien life-forms and interplanetary warfare. Written in the 2nd century, the novel has been referred to as "the first known text that could be called science fiction". The work was intended by Lucian as a satire against contemporary and ancient sources, which quote fantastic and mythical events as truth.

Lucian's True Stories eludes a clear-cut literary classification. Its multilayered character has given rise to interpretations as diverse as science fiction, fantasy, satire or parody, depending on how much importance scholars attach to Lucian's explicit intention of telling a story of falsehoods.

Plot

In True Stories, Lucian and a company of adventuring heroes sail westward through the Pillars of Hercules (the Strait of Gibraltar) in order to explore lands and inhabitants beyond the Ocean, are blown off course by a strong wind, and after 79 days come to an island. This island is home to a river of wine filled with fish and bears, a marker indicating that Heracles and Dionysus have traveled to this point, along with normal footprints and giant footprints.