The 1964 summer Olympic Games were Japan’s great return to the world stage after its defeat and destruction two decades earlier in World War II.
The first Games ever held in Asia were also a chance to trumpet the rebuilding of post-war Tokyo and the country’s emergence as a high-tech giant with the infrastructure to match.
That included the first of its high-speed shinkansen “bullet trains” that would come to epitomise modern Japan.
“An historic week is beginning for Japan,” AFP wrote six days before the opening ceremony.
“Never before has it wanted to welcome so many foreigners.”