Events
- January 16 - Tokyo prosecutors raid Livedoor for suspected violations of securities laws.
- January 18 - Following the Livedoor raid, the Tokyo Stock Exchange is overloaded with sell orders and is forced to stop trading.
- January 23 - Livedoor CEO Takafumi Horie and three other company officials are arrested and placed in detention.
- February 1 - Transit operators in the Kansai region introduce the PiTaPa contactless fare card system.
- February 6 - Construction Ministry officials cite Toyoko Inns for multiple violations of building codes and disability access laws.
- February 23 - 2006 Winter Olympics Shizuka Arakawa Gold medal acquisition.
- March 3–5 - Asian round of the World Baseball Classic is held at the Tokyo Dome.
- March 4 - Softbank announces its intention to purchase the Japanese subsidiary of Vodafone.
- April 7 - Ichirō Ozawa is elected president of the Democratic Party of Japan.
- April 26 - Takahumi Horie is released from custody.
- April 26 - Hidetsugu Aneha is arrested for his role in the Structural Calculation Forgery Problem.
- May 1 - The new Corporations Act goes into effect, abolishing yugen kaisha and altering kabushiki kaisha.
- June - Minato Ward 2006 elevator accident, a 16 year old student killed in Minato, Tokyo
- June 5 - Yoshiaki Murakami, manager of the Murakami Fund, is arrested for insider trading.
- June 15 - A cross-party organization of 135 Diet members led by Taku Yamasaki proposes a secular replacement for Yasukuni Shrine.
- July 14 - Bank of Japan abolishes the zero interest rate policy.
- July 20 - A memorandum from an Imperial Household Agency official is published in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun showing that Emperor Hirohito refused to visit Yasukuni Shrine after Class A war criminals were added to its rolls.
- August 9 - Beef imported from the United States goes on sale in Japan for the first time in months following a lengthy ban.
- August 14 - A blackout occurs throughout Tokyo, Chiba and Saitama during the morning rush hour after a barge-mounted crane disrupts a high-voltage line.
- August 15 - On the anniversary of the end of World War II, Koizumi makes his final visit to Yasukuni Shrine.
- August 16 - A fishing boat is fired upon after crossing into Russian-claimed waters off the east coast of Hokkaidō.
- September 22 - Junichiro Koizumi's term as president of the Liberal Democratic Party expires.
- December 2 - Nintendo's Wii is released in Japan.
Read more about this topic: 2006 In Japan
Famous quotes containing the word events:
“Just as a mirror may be used to reflect images, so ancient events may be used to understand the present.”
—Chinese proverb.
“When the world was half a thousand years younger all events had much sharper outlines than now. The distance between sadness and joy, between good and bad fortune, seemed to be much greater than for us; every experience had that degree of directness and absoluteness which joy and sadness still have in the mind of a child”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“The phenomenon of nature is more splendid than the daily events of nature, certainly, so then the twentieth century is splendid.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)