Portal:Japan/Anniversaries/January/January 26

1870 - The first public utility, Denshin, is established. (Traditional Japanese Date: Twenty-fifth Day of the Twelfth Month, 1869)
1882 - Painter Georges Ferdinand Bigot arrives in Japan.
1886 - The Hokkaidō Agency opens, with its main office in Sapporo and branch offices in Hakodate and Nemuro.
1924 - The future Emperor Shōwa marries Princess Kuninomiya Nagako.
1948 - Twelve employees of the Shiina branch of the Teikoku Bank (a precursor to the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation) die from arsenic poisoning. Hirasawa Sadamichi is arrested later that year and sentenced to death, but the sentence was never carried out because of problems with his conviction. He later died in prison of natural causes in May 1987.
1949 - The main hall of Hōryūji burns down.
1979 - Umekawa Akiyoshi, wielding a hunting rifle, kills 2 policemen and 2 employees and takes 40 hostages at the Kitabatake branch of Mitsubishi Bank (in Osaka). He is shot and killed 2 days later.
1985 - Takenaka Masahisa, the boss of the Yamaguchi-gumi (a yakuza group), is shot. He dies the next day.
1992 - Takanohana becomes the youngest sumo wrestler to ever win a championship.