Martin Luther publicised The Ninety-Five Theses in 1517 in Wittenberg

Tokyo, as the centre of the Greater Tokyo Area, is Japan's largest domestic and international hub for rail, ground, and air transportation. Public transportation within Tokyo is dominated by an extensive network of clean and efficient[67] trains and subways run by a variety of operators, with buses, monorails and trams playing a secondary feeder role.
Within Ota, one of the 23 special wards, Haneda Airport offers domestic and international flights. Outside Tokyo, Narita International Airport, in Chiba Prefecture, is the major gateway for international travelers to Japan and Japan's flag carrier Japan Airlines, All Nippon Airways, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines all have a hub at this airport.
Various islands governed by Tokyo have their own airports. Hachijo-jima (Hachijojima Airport), Miyakejima (Miyakejima Airport), and Izu Oshima (Oshima Airport) have services to Tokyo International and other airports.
Rail is the primary mode of transportation in Tokyo, which has the most extensive urban railway network in the world and an equally extensive network of surface lines. JR East operates Tokyo's largest railway network, including the Yamanote Line loop that circles the centre of downtown Tokyo. Two organisations operate the subway network: the private Tokyo Metro and the governmental Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation. The metropolitan government and private carriers operate bus routes. Local, regional, and national services are available, with major terminals at the giant railroad stations, including Tokyo, Shinagawa, and Shinjuku.
Expressways link the capital to other points in the Greater Tokyo area, the Kanto region, and the islands of Kyushu and Shikoku. In order to build them quickly before the 1964 Summer Olympics, most were constructed above existing roads.[68] Other transportation includes taxis operating in the special wards and the cities and towns. Also long-distance ferries serve the islands of Tokyo and carry passengers and cargo to domestic and foreign ports

Tokyo has many museums. In Ueno Park, there is the Tokyo National Museum, the country's largest museum and specializing in traditional Japanese art; the National Museum of Western Art and Ueno Zoo. Other museums include the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Odaiba; the Edo-Tokyo Museum in Sumida, across the Sumida River from the center of Tokyo; the Nezu Museum in Aoyama; and the National Diet Library, National Archives, and the National Museum of Modern Art, which are near the Imperial Palace.
Tokyo has many theatres for performing arts. These include national and private theatres for traditional forms of Japanese drama (such as noh and kabuki) as well as modern drama. Symphony orchestras and other musical organisations perform modern and traditional music. Tokyo also hosts modern Japanese and international pop and rock music at venues ranging in size from intimate clubs to internationally known arenas such as the Nippon Budokan.

The Sanja Festival in Asakusa
Many different festivals occur throughout Tokyo. Major events include the Sanno at Hie Shrine, the Sanja at Asakusa Shrine, and the biennial Kanda Festivals. The last features a parade with elaborately decorated floats and thousands of people. Annually on the last Saturday of July, an enormous fireworks display over the Sumida River attracts over a million viewers. Once cherry blossoms bloom in spring, many residents gather in Ueno Park, Inokashira Park, and the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden for picnics under the blossoms.
Harajuku, a neighbourhood in Shibuya, is known internationally for its youth style, fashion[70] and cosplay.
Cuisine in Tokyo is internationally acclaimed. In November 2007, Michelin released their guide for fine dining in Tokyo, awarding 191 stars in total, or about twice as many as Tokyo's nearest competitor, Paris. Eight establishments were awarded the maximum of three stars (Paris has 10), 25 received two stars, and 117 earned one star. Of the eight top-rated restaurants, three offer traditional Japanese fine dining, two are sushi houses and three serve French cuisine


Tokyo, with a diverse array of sports, is home to two professional baseball clubs, the Yomiuri Giants who play at the Tokyo Dome and Tokyo Yakult Swallows at Meiji-Jingu Stadium. The Japan Sumo Association is also headquartered in Tokyo at the Ryogoku Kokugikan sumo arena where three official sumo tournaments are held annually (in January, May, and September). Football clubs in Tokyo include F.C. Tokyo and Tokyo Verdy 1969, both of which play at Ajinomoto Stadium in Chofu.
Tokyo hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics. The National Stadium, also known as the Olympic Stadium is host to a number of international sporting events. With a number of world-class sports venues, Tokyo often hosts national and international sporting events such as tennis tournaments, swim meets, marathons, rugby union and sevens rugby games, American football exhibition games, judo, and karate. Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, in Sendagaya, Shibuya, is a large sports complex that includes swimming pools, training rooms, and a large indoor arena. According to Around the Rings, the gymnasium has played host to the October 2011 artistic gymnastics world championships, despite the International Gymnastics Federation's initial doubt in Tokyo's ability to host the championships following the March 11 tsunami.[72] Tokyo is currently bidding to host the 2020 Summer Olympics.[73] The IOC selected Tokyo as a Candidate City in May 2012.[74]
In popular culture[edit source | editbeta]


Fuji TV headquarters

Tokyo Sky Tree

Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building
As the largest population centre in Japan and the location of the country's largest broadcasters and studios, Tokyo is frequently the setting for many Japanese movies, television shows, animated series (anime), web comics, and comic books (manga). In the kaiju (monster movie) genre, landmarks of Tokyo are routinely destroyed by giant monsters such as Godzilla and Gamera.
Some Hollywood directors have turned to Tokyo as a filming location for movies set in Tokyo. Well-known examples from the postwar era include Tokyo Joe, My Geisha, Tokyo Story and the James Bond film You Only Live Twice; well-known contemporary examples include Kill Bill, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Lost in Translation, Babel, and Inception.


Germany (Listeni/'d??rm?ni/; German: Deutschland), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland, pronounced ['b?nd?s?epu?bli?k 'd??t?lant] ( listen)),[11] is a federal parliamentary republic in western-central Europe. The country consists of 16 states and its capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres (137,847 sq mi) and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With 80.3 million inhabitants, it is the most populous member state in the European Union. Germany is the major economic and political power of the European continent and a historic leader in many theoretical and technical fields.
Germany is the world's fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP and the fifth-largest by purchasing power parity. As a global leader in several industrial and technological sectors, it is the second-largest exporter and third-largest importer of goods. The country ranks highly in many international metrics of performance, has developed a very high standard of living, and features a comprehensive social security system, which includes the world's oldest universal health care system. Known for its rich cultural and political history, Germany has been the home of many influential philosophers, music composers, scientists, and inventors.
In the Classical Era, what is now the Federal Republic of Germany and Austria was occupied by Balts, Celts, and others. The Germanic population was largely restricted to Scandinavia and various Baltic Sea islands. By the time they first entered the historical record in the 4th Century BC (in the writings of Pytheas), they had begun to migrate across the Baltic. Tribes such as the Goths and Winnili (later known as Lombards) displaced the Balts, and soon came to the attention of the expanding Roman Empire. A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, was documented before AD 100. During the Migration Period, the Germanic tribes expanded southward and established successor kingdoms throughout much of Europe.
Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire.[12] During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation while southern and western areas (most notably Bavaria) remained dominated by Roman Catholicism, with the two factions clashing in the Thirty Years' War, marking the beginning of the Catholic–Protestant divide that has characterised German society ever since.[13] Occupied during the Napoleonic Wars, the rise of Pan-Germanism inside the German Confederation resulted in the unification of most of the German states in 1871 into the German Empire, which was dominated by Prussia.
After the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and the subsequent military surrender in World War I, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic in 1918, with some of its territory partitioned in the Treaty of Versailles. Despite its lead in many scientific and cultural fields at this time, Germany nonetheless endured significant economic and political instability, which intensified during the Great Depression and contributed to the establishment of the Third Reich in 1933. The subsequent rise of fascism lead to World War II, which devastated the country and much of Europe. Following the war's end in 1945, Germany was divided by allied occupation and evolved into two states, East Germany and West Germany, which were at the centre of the Cold War. In 1990, amidst the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, the country was reunified.
Germany was a founding member of the European Community in 1957, which became the EU in 1993. It is part of the Schengen Area, and has been a member of the euro area since 1999. Germany is considered a great power in regional and global affairs, and is a member of several international institutions, including the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, the OECD and the Council of Europe. It took a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council for the 2011–2012 term

The Germanic tribes are thought to date from the Nordic Bronze Age or the Pre-Roman Iron Age. From southern Scandinavia and north Germany, they expanded south, east and west from the 1st century BC, coming into contact with the Celtic tribes of Gaul as well as Iranian, Baltic, and Slavic tribes in Central and Eastern Europe.[16] Under Augustus, the Roman General Publius Quinctilius Varus began to invade Germania (an area extending roughly from the Rhine to the Ural Mountains). In AD 9, three Roman legions led by Varus were defeated by the Cheruscan leader Arminius. By AD 100, when Tacitus wrote Germania, Germanic tribes had settled along the Rhine and the Danube (the Limes Germanicus), occupying most of the area of modern Germany; Austria, southern Bavaria and the western Rhineland, however, were Roman provinces.[17]
In the 3rd century a number of large West Germanic tribes emerged: Alemanni, Franks, Chatti, Saxons, Frisii, Sicambri, and Thuringii. Around 260, the Germanic peoples broke into Roman-controlled lands.[18] After the invasion of the Huns in 375, and with the decline of Rome from 395, Germanic tribes moved further south-west. Simultaneously several large tribes formed in what is now Germany and displaced the smaller Germanic tribes. Large areas (known since the Merovingian period as Austrasia) were occupied by the Franks, and Northern Germany was ruled by the Saxons and Slavs.[17]
Holy Roman Empire

The Imperial Crown of the kings of the Holy Roman Empire

Map of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation in 1600 (in today's state borders)
Main article: Holy Roman Empire
On 25 December 800, the Frankish king Charlemagne was crowned emperor and founded the Carolingian Empire, which was divided in 843.[19] The Holy Roman Empire resulted from the eastern portion of this division. Its territory stretched from the Eider River in the north to the Mediterranean coast in the south.[19] Under the reign of the Ottonian emperors (919–1024), several major duchies were consolidated, and the German king was crowned Holy Roman Emperor of these regions in 962. The Holy Roman Empire absorbed northern Italy and Burgundy under the reign of the Salian emperors (1024–1125), although the emperors lost power through the Investiture Controversy.
Under the Hohenstaufen emperors (1138–1254), the German princes increased their influence further south and east into territories inhabited by Slavs, preceding German settlement in these areas and further east (Ostsiedlung). Northern German towns grew prosperous as members of the Hanseatic League.[20] Starting with the Great Famine in 1315, then the Black Death of 1348–50, the population of Germany plummeted.[21] The edict of the Golden Bull in 1356 provided the basic constitution of the empire and codified the election of the emperor by seven prince-electors who ruled some of the most powerful principalities and archbishoprics.[22]


Martin Luther initiated the Protestant Reformation
Martin Luther publicised The Ninety-Five Theses in 1517 in Wittenberg, challenging the Roman Catholic Church and initiating the Protestant Reformation. A separate Lutheran church became the official religion in many German states after 1530. Religious conflict led to the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), which devastated German lands.[23] The population of the German states was reduced by about 30%.[24] The Peace of Westphalia (1648) ended religious warfare among the German states, but the empire was de facto divided into numerous independent principalities. In the 18th century, the Holy Roman Empire consisted of approximately 1,800 such territories.[25]
From 1740 onwards, dualism between the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy and the Kingdom of Prussia dominated German history. In 1806, the Imperium was overrun and dissolved as a result of the Napoleonic Wars