Yasaka Shrine

This guide to Yasaka Shrine in Kyoto opens in 869, when a plague sent imperial messengers to this spot to raise sixty-six sacred halberds against a fierce protector god, a ritual that grew into Kyoto's biggest annual festival. It then jumps to 1533, when the city's shogunate tried to ban that festival outright, and the merchants and shopkeepers who governed the shrine's grounds refused to accept the order quietly. Look for the lantern-strung stage inside bearing the names of those same merchant families.