Japan's First Free Election, 1946
Newsreel film of Japanese voters at the general election of April 1946, the first in which women could vote.
The 1946 election was held under occupation, on a franchise that had just been extended to women, and it returned the first Diet of the postwar order. It stands at the far end of a transformation that began in 1868, when the Meiji settlement swept away the samurai class and built a modern state in its place. Read the full story in our article on The Meiji Restoration: Revolution and the Fall of Japan’s Samurai Class.
Public domain — source (US National Archives (via YouTube)). Free to reuse under the stated licence.
