Itō Hirobumi

Born Hayashi Risuke in 1841 to a poor farming family in Chōshū Domain, Itō and his father were adopted into a low-ranking samurai household. After Japan's opening in 1854, he joined the nationalist sonnō jōi movement before being sent to study at University College London in 1863. Following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, he climbed quickly through the new government: junior councilor, then a mission to study American currency systems, later a full councilor traveling with the Iwakura Mission across the U.S. and Europe. By the early 1880s he had become the de facto leader of the Meiji oligarchy…