Portrait of James Curtis Hepburn

Birthday profile

James Curtis Hepburn

American physician, educator, and phonologist of Japanese (1815–1911)

Born
March 13, 1815
Died
September 21, 1911
Zodiac sign
Pisces
Birth year
1815

About James Curtis Hepburn

James Curtis Hepburn was an American physician, educator, translator and lay Christian missionary. He is known for the Hepburn romanization system for transliteration of the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet, which he popularized in his Japanese–English dictionary. After first arriving in Nagasaki in October 1859, Hepburn swiftly relocated to the newly opened treaty port of Yokohama, opening his first clinic in April 1861 at the Sōkōji Temple. Initially residing at Jōbutsuji in Kanagawa, a dilapidated temple formerly occupied by the Dutch consulate, Hepburn was the first Christian missionary to take up residence close to the newly opened treaty port.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when James Curtis Hepburn was born

James Curtis Hepburn was born in 1815. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Headlines and milestones

  • Top headlineNapoleon defeated at Waterloo
  • Technology milestoneMiner's safety lamp invented by Humphry Davy
  • World population~975M

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderJames Madison
  • U.S. population8.3M

1815 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in James Curtis Hepburn's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure18152026
Population8.3M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.