Invention Day in Japan

Everyone knows that we have Japan to thank for contributions to the world like sushi, origami, Marie Kondo and Pokémon, but there's a whole host of ideas, inventions and gadgets that have come from Japan. The Japanese have made contributions across a number of scientific and technological domains. Emoji, Walkman, CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, VHS...

Yes, that's right – we also have Japan to thank for the novel. As far as we can tell, the Japanese story 'The Tale of Genji', written by a lady-in-waiting at the Imperial Court named Murasaki Shikibu in the early 11th century, was the first example of the modern novel ever written. The story revolves around the life of Hikaru Genji, the son of an ancient Japanese emperor, and a beloved concubine. Adam L. Kern has suggested that kibyoshi, picture books from the late 18th century, may have been the world's first comic books. Japanese animation, or anime, today widely popular both in Japan and abroad, began in the early 20th century.

The first scale designed to measure tornado intensity, the Fujita scale, was first introduced by Ted Fujita (in collaboration with Allen Pearson) in 1971. A generic process management philosophy derived mostly from the Toyota Production System (TPS) (hence the term Toyotism is also prevalent) and identified as "Lean" only in the 1990s.