Battle of Uji and start of the Genpei War

June 20, 1180

In central Japan, the Minamoto prince Yorimasa and a force of warrior-monks fought a Taira army at a river bridge near Uji and lost. Yorimasa committed ritual suicide on the battlefield, reportedly the first recorded seppuku. Years of civil war between Taira and Minamoto had begun. The conflict would be immortalized in the Tale of the Heike, one of the masterpieces of Japanese literature.