William Adams (pilot)

William Adams , better known in Japan as Miura Anjin , was an English navigator who, in 1600, became the first Englishman to reach Japan. He did so on a trading ship called De Liefde under the leadership of Jacob Quaeckernaeck; it was the only vessel reaching Japan from a five-ship expedition launched by a company of Rotterdam merchants. Among the few survivors of the expedition who reached Japan, for more than a decade, the authorities did not allow Adams and his second mate Jan Joosten to leave the country. Earlier, they did permit Quaeckernaeck and Melchior van Santvoort to return to the Dutch Republic to establish formal trade relations. Adams and Joosten settled in Japan, where both became a hatamoto,.

24 September 1564

Born on the same birth day (24 September): Chris Pincher • César Pedroso • Drew Gooden • Elizabeth Blackadder • Horace Walpole • Jan Carew • Jean-Louis Lully • John Brunner (author) • John Kerr (governor-general) • John McDonald (infielder) • Leopold Joseph von Daun • Mikhail Ostrogradsky