1708
Hôei 5 (宝永五年)
Timeline of 1708
- 1708/1/3 Mt. Fuji, which began erupting on 1707/11/23, becomes dormant again. It has not erupted since.
- 1708/9 Sakata Tôjûrô I appears onstage for the final time, in a production of Yûgiri Nagori no Shôgatsu.
- 1708/12/3 Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi issues his "Kindness to Animals Decrees." All animals are to be kindly treated; if horses get tired while being ridden, they are to be stabled and taken care of by whatever mansions are nearby; and, post-horses are not to be overtaxed, and are to be well taken care of in both shogunal and domain lands.
Other Events of 1708
- Arai Hakuseki meets with and interviews the Jesuit missionary Giovanni Battista Sidotti.
- Arai Hakuseki completes his Sairan igen, credited as being the first systematic geography of the world to be produced in Japan.
- Asano Yoshinaga succeeds Asano Tsunanaga as daimyô of Hiroshima han.
- The Imperial Palace in Kyoto burns down; reconstruction is completed the following year.
- The wooden Madan-bashi is rebuilt in stone.
- Construction, begun in 1695, is completed on the Taku Seibyô in Taku, Saga han. It is today the oldest extant Confucian temple in Japan.
- Tei Junsoku compiles the Six Courses in Morals (六諭衍義) and brings it back from China.
Births and Deaths
- Nakamura Shichisaburô dies (b. 1662).
| Previous Year 1707 |
1708 | Following Year 1709 |