Portal:Japan/Anniversaries/March/March 12

March 12:

Events
 * 1874 - Japan holds its first athletic meet at a naval school in Tsukiji.
 * 1876 - The "one-six system," a work day system everyone had the 1st, 6th, 11th, 16th, 21st, and 26th of every month off, is reformed to a 7-day work week with a half-day working day on Saturday, and Sundays off. The new system is implemented among government workers in April, and it quickly spreads through the rest of the country. The half-day working day on Saturday was colloquially referred to as the "han-don." Han means half in Japanese and "don" referred to the thunder of the imperial palace cannon that was fired every day at noon beginning in September 1871 and which came to symbolize quitting time on Saturdays.
 * 1912 - The precursor to JTB, the Japan Travel Bureau, is established.
 * 1969 - Thirty centimeters of snow fall in Tokyo, bringing traffic to a halt.
 * 2011 - A reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant melts and explodes and releases radioactivity into the atmosphere a day after Japan's earthquake.

Births
 * 1910 - Masayoshi Ōhira (d. 1980), politician, 68th Prime Minister of Japan
 * 1925 - Leo Esaki, physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
 * 1960 - Minoru Niihara, singer-songwriter and bass player
 * 1960  - Maki Nomiya, singer
 * 1962 - Diamond Yukai, singer and actor
 * 1966 - Akemi Okamura, voice actress
 * 1974 - Hekiru Shiina, voice actress and singer
 * 1978 - Arina Tanemura, author and illustrator
 * 1981 - Kenta Kobayashi, wrestler and kick-boxer
 * 1981  - Mayumi Ono, actress, entertainer, model, and singer
 * 1981  - Chiwa Saitō, voice actress
 * 1986 - Chihiro Otsuka, actress
 * 1987 - Hiroomi Tosaka, singer and actor
 * 1995 - Kanon Fukuda, singer and voice actress
 * 1999 - Sakura Oda, singer