Ee ja nai ka: dancing at the end of the shogunate
Amulets fall from the sky and Japan breaks into dance
In 1867–68, as the Tokugawa shogunate crumbled, days-long carnivals swept Japan after sacred amulets reportedly fell from the sky. People cross-dressed, danced in the streets and chanted 'Ee ja nai ka!' — roughly 'Why not?'
Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — 22 years earlier
- 1861 Unification of Italy — 6 years earlier
- 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War — 3 years later
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — 19 years later
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — 22 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — 14 years earlier
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — 6 years earlier
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — same year
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — 2 years later
- 1877 Premiere of Swan Lake — 10 years later
Middle East
- 1876–1878 The first Ottoman constitution — 9 years later
Africa
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — 2 years later
- 1879 Battle of Isandlwana — 12 years later
- 1885 The Mahdists take Khartoum — 18 years later
- 1885–1908 The Congo Free State — 18 years later
- 1886 The Witwatersrand Gold Rush — 19 years later
Americas
- 1865 Assassination of Abraham Lincoln — 2 years earlier
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — same year
- 1869 First transcontinental railroad — 2 years later
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — 9 years later
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — 12 years later
Oceania
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — 16 years earlier
Alive at the time
- Charles Darwin (aged 58)
- Karl Marx (aged 49)
- Queen Victoria (aged 48)
- Fyodor Dostoevsky (aged 46)
- Leo Tolstoy (aged 39)
- Dmitri Mendeleev (aged 33)
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (aged 27)
- Thomas Edison (aged 20)
- Vincent van Gogh (aged 14)
- Nikola Tesla (aged 11)