October 12, 1960: A live
political debate for the parliamentary election in Japan was stopped in
dramatic fashion when Japanese ultranationalist, Otoya Yamaguchi, assassinated
head of the Japan Socialist Party, Inejiro Asanuma, by stabbing him with a
samurai sword.
Asanuma was in the middle of discussing his support for Chinese
Communism in Hibiya Hall when Yamaguchi sprinted on stage with a yoroidoshi at
the ready and stabbed the inattentive politician on his left side, which
ultimately killed him.
The entire assassination was
broadcast live before the guards could subdue Yamaguchi, who was only 17 years
of age at the time of the murder. The entire crowd was in shock having seen
such violence before their very own eyes; let alone the people who witnessed it
on television.
A few weeks after the assasination, while imprisoned in a
juvenile detention facility for his crime, Yamaguchi mixed toothpaste with
water and wrote a message on his cell wall: "Seven lives for my country.
Long live His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor!"
Yamaguchi then decided to knot up
strips of his bedsheet into a makeshift rope and hung himself from the light
fixture in his cell. Right-wing groups viewed Yamaguchi as a martyr; even
giving a burial coat, kimono, and belt to his parents and had a memorial
service for him.
