History
Imamiya Shrine was originally founded during the Heian period in 994. In 1001, however, the shrine was moved to its present day location as a response to an epidemic that had hit the Kyoto area a year earlier. Current iterations of many of the structures were rebuilt in 1902. The shrine's festival, Yasurai Matsuri, was also created as a response to the epidemic. Through music and dance, the festival attempts to appease petrels around Kyoto with cherry blossom petals in their beaks, which were then believed to be spreading disease.
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“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“The principal office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.”
—Tacitus (c. 55–c. 120)
“The history of his present majesty, is a history of unremitting injuries and usurpations ... all of which have in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world, for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)