Tokugawa Era (aka Edo Period) (1603-1868): the final phase of feudal Japan: a 265-year span of centralized military rule under the Tokugawa shogunate, founded by Tokugawa Ieyasu after his decisive victory at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. Governing from Edo (present-day Tokyo), the shogunate imposed a rigid social hierarchy of samurai, farmers, artisans, and merchants, enforced a policy of near-total national isolation (sakoku) that restricted foreign trade to a small Dutch and Chinese presence at Nagasaki. The Era was an extraordinary paradox: a military government that presided over 250 years of domestic peace. The culture and arts that are now identified as Japanese evolved during the Tokugawa Era. The sophisticated commercial markets of Osaka gave rise to the world’s first futures exchange and the candlestick charting tradition. The Era ended with the Meiji Restoration of 1868, whereupon Japan opened to rapid Westernization, culminating ruinously in the Pacific theatre of World War 2.