is the most important Shinto shrine in the city of Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. The shrine is a cultural center of the city of Kamakura and serves as the venue of many of its most important festivals with two museums. For most of its history, it served both as a Hachiman shrine, and in latter years a Tendai Buddhist temple typical of Japanese Buddhist architecture. The famed Buddhist priest Nichiren Daishonin once reputedly visited the shrine to reprimand the kami Hachiman just before his execution at Shichirigahama beach. A former one thousand-year-old ginkgo tree near its entrance was uprooted by a storm on 10 March 2010. The shrine continues to serve as one of the Important Cultural Properties of Japan. History This shrine was originally built in 1063 as a branch of Iwashimizu Shrine in Zaimokuza where tiny Moto Hachiman now stands and dedicated to the Emperor Ōjin, (deified with the name Hachiman, tutelary kami of warriors), his mother Empress Jingu and his wife Hime-gami. Minamoto no Yoritomo, the founder of the Kamakura shogunate, moved it to its present location in 1191 and invited Hachiman to reside in the new location to protect his government. The shrine caught a major fire in 14 November 1280, where several artifacts were also stolen from the inner sanctum of the shrine. Assassination of Minamoto no Sanetomo One of the historical events the shrine is tied to is the assassination of Sanetomo, last of Minamoto no Yoritomo's sons. Under heavy snow on the evening of February 12, 1219 (Jōkyū 1, 26th day of the 1st month), shōgun Minamoto no Sanetomo was coming down from Tsurugaoka Hachimangū's Senior Shrine after assisting to a ceremony celebrating his nomination to Udaijin. His nephew Kugyō, son of second shōgun Minamoto no Yoriie, came out from next to the stone stairway of the shrine, then suddenly attacked and assassinated him in the hope to become shōgun himself. The killer is often described as hiding behind the giant ginkgo, but no contemporary text mentions the tree, and this detail is likely an Edo-period invention first appeared in Tokugawa Mitsukuni's Shinpen Kamakurashi. For his act Kugyō was himself beheaded a few hours later, thus bringing the Seiwa Genji line of the Minamoto clan and their rule in Kamakura to a sudden end. Shrine and temple Tsurugaoka Hachimangū is now just a Shinto shrine but, for the almost 700 years from its