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Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, episode 260, The City That Never Sleeps, Part 3.

Saturday, September 1st, 1923 started like any other day in Tokyo.

The over 3 million inhabitants of the greater Tokyo metro area were living a life on a generally upward trajectory. Both their city and

the empire governed had grown substantially in the past few decades. Tokyo was now aspiring

towards being not only a modern city, but a genuinely

world-class one, capable of competing with places like Paris, London, and New York.

Now, Japan's economy certainly still lagged behind the West. For example, in 1935, the American

GDP gross domestic product per capita was $540.

In Japan, it was 64.

Still, Japan's economy had grown substantially, and average Japanese were feeling the benefits.

...