Tsukuba

History: The Tsukuba-class cruisers (筑波型 巡洋戦艦 Tsukuba-gata jun'yōsenkan) were a pair of large armored cruisers built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in the first decade of the 20th century. Construction began during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 and their design was influenced by the IJN's experiences during the war. The British development of the battlecruiser the year after Tsukuba was completed made her and her sister ship Ikoma obsolete, as they were slower and more weakly armed than the British, and later German, ships. Despite this, they were reclassified in 1912 as battlecruisers by the IJN.

Both ships played a small role in World War I as they unsuccessfully hunted for the German East Asia Squadron in late 1914. They became training ships later in the war. Tsukuba was destroyed in an accidental magazine explosion in 1917 and subsequently scrapped. Her sister was disarmed in 1922 in accordance with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty and broken up for scrap in 1924.

Type: Cruiser

SubType: Armored Cruiser

Primary Country: Japan is an island nation in the Pacific Ocean with dense cities, imperial palaces, mountainous national parks and thousands of shrines and temples. Shinkansen bullet trains connect the main islands of Kyushu (with Okinawa's subtropical beaches), Honshu (home to Tokyo and Hiroshima’s atomic-bomb memorial) and Hokkaido (famous for skiing). Tokyo, the capital, is known for skyscrapers, shopping and pop culture.

Although legend has it that Japan was founded in 660BC, archaeologists agree that settlement in the Japanese archpelago dates back as far as 100,000 years. The Jomon Period (8000-c.300BC) is the earliest that has been studied. It is named after the 'jomon' or cord-marked pattern style of pottery of the period.