Death of Oda Nobunaga

Date: June 21, 1582 • Location: Kyoto, Japan

Sengoku period: Oda Nobunaga, the most powerful of the Japanese daimyōs, is forced to commit suicide by his own general Akechi Mitsuhide.

The Sengoku period was the period in Japanese history in which civil wars and social upheavals took place almost continuously in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Kyōtoku incident (1454), Ōnin War (1467), or Meiō incident (1493) are generally chosen as the period's start date, but there are many competing historiographies for its end date, ranging from 1568, the date of Oda Nobunaga's march on Kyoto, to the suppression of the Shimabara Rebellion in 1638, deep into what was traditionally considered the Edo period. Regardless of the dates chosen, the Sengoku period overlaps substantially with the Muromachi period (1336–1573).