Otoya Yamaguchi, Japanese assassin of Inejiro Asanuma (d. 1960)
Otoya Yamaguchi (山口 二矢, Yamaguchi Otoya, 22 February 1943 – 2 November 1960) was a Japanese right-wing ultranationalist youth who assassinated Inejirō Asanuma, chairman of the Japan Socialist Party, on 12 October 1960. Yamaguchi rushed the stage and stabbed Asanuma with a wakizashi short sword while Asanuma was participating in a televised election debate at Hibiya Public Hall in Tokyo. Yamaguchi, who was 17 years of age at the time, had been a member of Bin Akao's far-right Greater Japan Patriotic Party, but had resigned earlier that year. After being arrested and interrogated, Yamaguchi committed suicide while in a detention facility.
Yamaguchi became a hero and a martyr to the Japanese far-right, and commemorations in his honor continue to this day. Yamaguchi's actions inspired a number of copycat crimes, including the Shimanaka Incident in 1961, and inspired Nobel Prize-winning novelist Kenzaburō Ōe's novellas Seventeen and Death of a Political Youth. A photograph of the Asanuma assassination taken by Japanese photojournalist Yasushi Nagao is considered one of the most famous press photographs of the 20th century, and won World Press Photo of the Year for 1960 and the 1961 Pulitzer Prize.
1943Feb, 22
Otoya Yamaguchi
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Events on 1943
- 11Feb
Dwight D. Eisenhower
World War II: General Dwight D. Eisenhower is selected to command the allied armies in Europe. - 30May
Auschwitz concentration camp
The Holocaust: Josef Mengele becomes chief medical officer of the Zigeunerfamilienlager (Romani family camp) at Auschwitz concentration camp. - 19Jun
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers in the NFL merge for one season due to player shortages caused by World War II. - 6Nov
Kiev
World War II: The Soviet Red Army recaptures Kiev. Before withdrawing, the Germans destroy most of the city's ancient buildings. - 4Dec
Josip Broz Tito
World War II: In Yugoslavia, resistance leader Marshal Josip Broz Tito proclaims a provisional democratic Yugoslav government in-exile.