In 1583 Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the warlord who brought all of Japan under his rule, began Osaka Castle on the site of a former temple-fortress. Its keep was decorated with gold leaf, and huge stone walls and moats surrounded it.
After Hideyoshi's death, Tokugawa Ieyasu besieged the castle in 1614 and 1615 and destroyed the Toyotomi family. The Tokugawa rebuilt the castle on an even larger scale, with some of the biggest stones ever used in a Japanese castle wall.
The keep burned after a lightning strike in 1665. The one we see today was rebuilt in 1931 with money given by the people of Osaka, and it houses a museum about Hideyoshi and the castle's history.
