Battle of Sekigahara

Date: October 21, 1600 • Location: Tarui, Japan

This milestone marked the outbreak and beginning of this historic period, which spanned 1600.

Tokugawa Ieyasu defeats the leaders of rival Japanese clans in the Battle of Sekigahara and becomes shōgun of Japan.

Tokugawa Ieyasu was a Japanese samurai, daimyo and the founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which ruled from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was the third of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fellow Oda subordinate Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The son of a minor daimyo, Ieyasu once lived as a hostage under daimyo Imagawa Yoshimoto on behalf of his father. He later succeeded as daimyo after his father's death, serving as ally, vassal, and general of the Oda clan, and building up his strength under Oda Nobunaga.