Asanuma Assassinated on Live TV: Japan Shocked
Seventeen-year-old Otoya Yamaguchi charged across a television debate stage on October 12, 1960, and drove a traditional Japanese short sword into the abdomen of Socialist Party leader Inejiro Asanuma. The attack happened on live television. A photographer named Yasushi Nagao captured the exact moment of the stabbing in a single frame that won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize. Asanuma died within minutes. Yamaguchi was a far-right ultranationalist who had targeted Asanuma for his pro-China socialist positions. Three weeks after his arrest, Yamaguchi hanged himself in his detention cell using strips torn from his bedsheets. He was 17 years old. The assassination shocked Japan and prompted an immediate overhaul of security protocols at public political events throughout the country.
October 12, 1960
66 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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