Background
Jigorō Kanō was born on 10 December 1860 in Hyogo Prefecture.
Jigorō Kanō was born on 10 December 1860 in Hyogo Prefecture.
In 1875 he completed the Government Foreign Language School and in 1881 graduated from the literature course of Tokyo Imperial University.
He held positions as professor of the Peers’ School, head of the Fifth and First High School, head of the Tokyo Higher Normal School (1893-97), and head of the Regular Educational Bureau of the Ministry of Education. He was also selected to be a member of the Upper House of the Diet.
In 1882 he established a center for training in the military arts called the Kodokan on the grounds of a temple in the Shitaya section of Tokyo. There he revived and reformed the art of jujitsu, which had fallen into disuse after the Meiji Restoration. He incorporated into it various elements from Western style physical educational theory, physiology, and kinesiology, renamed it judo, and worked to teach and spread it in a systematic fashion. The Kodokan in time expanded, and Kano made no less than thirteen trips abroad, traveling all over the world to introduce judo to foreign countries and gain international recognition for it. In 1909 he was chosen to be a member of the International Olympic Committee, and judo was represented for the first time by two Japanese athletes at the Stockholm Olympics in 1912.
He was active in the movement to bring the Olympic Games to Japan and, at the general meeting of the I.O.C. (International Olympic Committee) in Cairo in 1938, he succeeded in having Tokyo chosen as the site for the Games, but he was taken sick and died while aboard the Japanese liner Hikawa Maru en route to Japan by way of America.
