Edo, the future Tokyo, had over a million people by the 1720s, one of the largest cities in the world.

1603 · 1721 · apart: 118 years

In 1590 it had been a modest castle town.

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The event

• Battle of Sekigahara1600 · Sekigahara. Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated a coalition of western daimyo and became Japan's de facto ruler. Named shogun in 1603, he founded the Tokugawa shogunate, based in Edo, which kept Japan at peace for two and a half centuries.

17th century · 18th century

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• 1602 In 1602 an Italian drew a world map for the Chinese — and moved the Pacific to the middle.
• 1602 · 1619 The Dutch East India Company issued the first shares ever traded on a stock exchange in 1602.
• 1603 · 1629 Kabuki, where men play every role, was invented by a woman.
• 1604 · 1609 The last supernova seen in our galaxy blazed five years before Galileo turned a telescope to the sky. Kepler's star appeared in 1604, and no Milky Way supernova has been reliably seen since.
• 1605 · 1616 Cervantes and Shakespeare died in April 1616 on nearly the same calendar date — but Spain used the Gregorian calendar and England did not, so over a week really separates them.

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