¹ Currently, about US $300,000.

² Currently, about US $100,000.

³ All references are given in Japanese local dates and times.

⁴ Stalin negotiated the Yalta and Potsdam agreements with Roosevelt and Churchill, establishing, in essence, the structure of the post-war world.

⁵ There were many Japanese civilians living in former Japanese colonies, especially Manchuria and southern Sakhalin, but also Korea and Taiwan among others. They were there at the behest of the Japanese government, which wanted to colonize its newly acquired territories. Both carrot and stick applied. While pressured to migrate, they were encouraged by economic inducements such as cheap land and relocation bonuses. After World War II ended some 3,000,000 Japanese civilians returned from former Japanese colonies and territories to Japan.

⁶ This alliance of 1902 was the first of three agreements made between Great Britain and Japan before the First World War. Basically, they acknowledged India and Korea as each other's spheres of influence, and promised to remain neutral if either nation became involved in a war with one of the “triple” great powers (France, Germany, and particularly, Russia). They were also to come to each other's aid if war involved more than one adversary. This agreement was critical in allowing Japan to enter the Russo-Japanese War in 1903, as France could not come to the aid of its Russia ally without risking war with Britain. The agreement was cancelled in the 1920s after pressure on the UK by the United States, which feared Japan's growing naval power in the Pacific.

⁷ For which the American president, Theodore Roosevelt, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1908.

⁸ The Kwantung Army (関東軍, Kantō-gun) was the largest army group in the Imperial Japanese Army. It was also politically influential, especially in the formation of the Manchukuo puppet state.

⁹ Known in Japan as the Manshū-jihen (満州事変), or the “Manchurian Incident.”

¹⁰ Nomonhan is the name of a village on the Mongolian-Manchurian border. This four-month battle is known as Khalkhyn Gol in Russia and the West (from a river passing by the battlefield). Though casualty figures are largely speculative—at least in the tens of thousands—Japan clearly suffered a decisive defeat. Though little known at the time, this battle had strategic importance for World War II. The Japanese would never attack the Soviet Union again, and the loss convinced the Imperial General Staff that the Imperial Army's plan summed up in the Northern Expansion Doctrine (北進論, Hokushin-ron) anticipating advance into Siberia and Manchuria was set aside in favor of the Imperial Navy's plan for obtaining resources through the Southern Expansion Doctrine (南進論, Nanshin-ron) that led it to advance into Southeast Asia after Pearl Harbor.

¹¹ Known as the Nis-So Chūritsu Jōyaku (日ソ中立条約) in Japan.

¹² Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Vasilevsky (1895-1977), Chief of Staff of the Soviet army, and Deputy Minister of Defense, during World War II.

¹³ Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov (1890-1986), in many ways Stalin's right-hand man, negotiated or helped negotiate, almost all the important wartime-era treaties of the Soviet Union, including the Teheran, Yalta, and Potsdam agreements.

¹⁴ Satō Naotake (1882-1971) served as a foreign service officer and diplomat from 1905. He subsequently rose to Minister of Foreign Affairs.

¹⁵ Known as Nis-So Kihon Jōyaku (日ソ基本条約) in Japan, this treaty normalized diplomatic relations between Japan and the new Soviet government. In it, Japan officially recognized the Soviet government and pledged to withdraw its troops from the northern half of Sakhalin. In return, the Soviets agreed to honor all previous treaties made between Japan and Czarist Russia.

¹⁶ These agreements made generous concessions to Japan, granting Japanese subjects fishing rights off the Russian coasts of the Bering Straits and Okhotsk and other places with only a three-mile limit.

¹⁷ At Potsdam (July 17 to August 2, 1945), the three victorious Allied powers met to decide the postwar fate of Nazi Germany, which had surrendered on May 8th.

¹⁸ Konoe Fumimaro (1891-1945), a former three-time Prime Minister of Japan, was the Emperor's advisor at this time.

¹⁹ Asaeda Shigeharu was the Chief Operations Staff Officer for the 25th Army.

²⁰ Hata Shunroku (1879-1962) was commander-in-chief of Japan's China Expeditionary Army. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Allies in the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal for failing to prevent civilian atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers. He was paroled in 1955.

²¹ An official English version is given here.

²² The full text states: “Every person shall have freedom to choose and change residence and to choose occupation to the extent that it does not interfere with the public welfare. Freedom of all persons to move to a foreign country and to divest themselves of their nationality shall be inviolate.”