Akira Kurosawa

1910 – 1998

Film & Entertainment

Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese filmmaker who directed 30 feature films in a career spanning six decades. With a bold and dynamic style strongly influenced by Western cinema yet distinct from it, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Known as a hands-on filmmaker, he was heavily involved with all aspects of production as a director, writer, producer, and editor.

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Their World

Global Events

1912 Sinking of the Titanic

1914 World War I begins

1917 Russian Revolution

1918 World War I ends; Spanish flu pandemic begins

1919 Treaty of Versailles signed

1920 League of Nations established

1928 Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin

1929 Wall Street Crash; Great Depression begins

1933 Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany

1936 Spanish Civil War begins

1939 World War II begins

1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor; US enters WWII

1944 D-Day: Allied invasion of Normandy

1945 Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; WWII ends

1945 United Nations founded

1947 India and Pakistan gain independence

1948 State of Israel established

1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted

1949 People's Republic of China proclaimed

1950 Korean War begins

1953 Watson and Crick discover DNA structure

1955 Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

1957 Sputnik launched; Space Age begins

1959 Cuban Revolution; Castro takes power

1961 Berlin Wall constructed

1962 Cuban Missile Crisis

1963 Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

1964 Civil Rights Act signed in the United States

1969 Apollo 11: first humans walk on the Moon

1971 Bangladesh Liberation War and independence

1973 1973 oil crisis

1975 Fall of Saigon; Vietnam War ends

1979 Iranian Revolution

1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster

1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall

1989 Tiananmen Square protests

1990 Nelson Mandela released from prison

1991 Dissolution of the Soviet Union

1994 Rwandan genocide

1994 End of apartheid; South Africa holds first free elections

1997 Dolly the Sheep cloned

1998 Good Friday Agreement signed in Northern Ireland

In Their Field

1915 D.W. Griffith releases The Birth of a Nation

1920 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari pioneers Expressionism

1927 The Jazz Singer: first feature-length talkie

1929 First Academy Awards ceremony held

1939 The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind released

1941 Orson Welles releases Citizen Kane

1946 Cannes Film Festival established

1950 Kurosawa releases Rashomon; Japanese cinema gains world stage

1960 Fellini releases La Dolce Vita

1960 French New Wave: Godard releases Breathless

1968 Kubrick releases 2001: A Space Odyssey

1972 Coppola releases The Godfather

1975 Spielberg releases Jaws; blockbuster era begins

1977 Star Wars released

1985 Miyazaki co-founds Studio Ghibli

1994 Pulp Fiction revitalizes independent cinema

1995 Toy Story: first fully computer-animated feature film