On this day in 1918, the Japanese rice riots began against high prices, a revolt up to then unparalleled in the country’s history in terms of scope, size and violence, which eventually led to the fall of Prime Minister Terauchi’s government.
From July-September 1918, Japan was swept with a wave of riots from rural fishing villages to major industrial centres and coal fields, in what was the largest upheaval in Japan to date, and the widest ranging popular disturbances since the unrest during the Meiji restoration of 1868.
The 1918 riots are an important episode in Japanese history and one that has been given little attention by either Japanese and western researchers. In terms of their breadth and depth, and also in their relation to events around the world at the end of the First World War