List of events
The following lists events that happened during 2015 in Japan.
Events
January
February
March
- March 2 – Rugby World Cup Ltd. and the 2019 Rugby World Cup organizing committee announce 12 venues, including a new stadium to be built in Kamaishi, Iwate, a city affected by 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, to host the 2019 Rugby World Cup matches.[16]
- March 3 – Paul Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft and a philanthropist, announces that he has discovered the Japanese battleship Musashi, more than 70 years after it was sunk by the United States Navy, in the Sibuyan Sea, of the Philippines.[17]
- March 10
- The Supreme Court rejects prosecutors' claims that a 41-year-old man from Osaka Prefecture evaded 570 million yen in taxes by failing to declare income from betting on horse races, confirming that money lost betting on horses can, for tax purposes, be considered expenses deductible from winnings.[18]
- FamilyMart and UNY Group Holdings, the holding company of Circle K Sunkus, reach an agreement to merge in September 2016, forming the second biggest convenience store operator by sales in Japan under a single brand name.[19]
- Yukio Hatoyama, a former Prime Minister and a former leader of the DPJ, despite requests from the Japanese government not to do so, makes a personal visit to Crimea, entering the territory with a Russian visa, which is against the policy of Japanese government following the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation. Georgy Muradov, deputy prime minister of the Republic of Crimea, met Hatoyama at Simferopol International Airport.[20]
- March 12 – A 46-year-old man, arrested in Hawaii in 2014 for a murder case which occurred in 2007, admits after entering a guilty plea at a court in San Diego that he killed his Japanese wife and left her body in the Anza-Borrego Desert in California.[21]
- March 14–18 – Sendai hosts the third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, resulting in the Sendai Framework, an agreement aiming for "the substantial reduction of disaster risk and losses in lives, livelihoods and health and in the economic, physical, social, cultural and environmental assets of persons, businesses, communities and countries."[22]
- March 14 – Hokuriku Shinkansen starts its service between Nagano and Kanazawa in Ishikawa Prefecture, cutting travel time between Tokyo and Kanazawa by about eighty minutes to as little as two hours and twenty-eight minutes.[23]
- March 18 – Three Japanese were killed and another three were injured in Bardo National Museum attack occurred in Tunis, Tunisia[24]
- March 24 – Two Japanese nationals were killed in the crash of Germanwings Flight 9525.[25]
- March 27 – The main keep of Himeji Castle, a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site, has reopened to the public after a major five-year face-lift.[26] The keep itself is recognized as one of the National Treasures of Japan.
April
- April 8 – Narita Airport opens the new Terminal 3, designated for Low-cost carriers.[27]
- April 8–9 – Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko make their first visit to Palau, attending a reception hosted by Tommy Remengesau, the President of Palau; also present are the Micronesian President Manny Mori and the Marshall Islands President Christopher Loeak. On the following day, the Emperor and the Empress visit the island of Peleliu, where some 10,000 soldiers of the Japanese Imperial Army were killed in the Battle of Peleliu in 1944.[28]
- April 10 – The Nikkei 225 index reaches 20,006.00 in the first few minutes of trade, passing the 20,000 level for the first time since April 2000.[29]
- April 12 – In the first round of the 2015 Japanese unified local elections, all 10 incumbent governors and 4 incumbent mayors of designated cities campaigning to keep their positions have been re-elected.[30]
- April 14
- April 17 – Prime Minister Shinzo Abe meets Takeshi Onaga, Governor of Okinawa Prefecture for the first time to push ahead with the government plan to relocate a U.S. military base in Futenma to the proposed location around Camp Schwab in Nago, Okinawa, but failed to reach agreement over the relocation.[36]
April 21
At Yamanashi Test Track, a seven car maglev train set a new land speed record for rail vehicles at 603 km/h. It is the only rail vehicle ever surpassed 600 km/h speed mark
May
- May 17 – A dormitory apartment fire in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, according to Fire and Disaster Management Agency official confirmed report, 11 peoples lost to lives, with 17 are injures.[40]
- May 29 – Kuchinoerabu-jima erupts, with pyroclastic flows reaching the coast.[41]
- May 30 – An abnormally intense magnitude 7.8 earthquake occurs in the Bonin Islands, with shaking observed throughout the territory. Official reports confirm 13 injuries.[42]
June
July
August
September
October
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