evidence: Dokdo/Takeshima/Liancourt Rocks (hereafter Dokdo) remains a sharp thorn in the side of contemporary Japan-ROK relations. The contentiousness of the issues is emblematic of unresolved political and territorial legacies of two centuries of colonialism in East Asia as well as of the post-war territorial disposition of the San Francisco Treaty and the global conflict that it mirrored and defined. The story has frequently been told in terms of Japan-ROK conflict. We explore its historical and contemporary ramifications here in a triangular century-long framework involving Japan, Korea and the United States. [...] Indeed, winds of accommodation quickly dissipated. On February 26, 2005, "Takeshima Day", local officials in Shimane prefecture reiterated the Japanese claim to Dokdo in the highest profile challenge to Korean control. The sentiment was not limited to Shimane. In 2008 newly published Japanese textbooks asserted historical claims to the islets. And on February 22, 2011, officials from the ruling Democratic Party for the first time attended a Shimane event claiming Takeshima for Japan.27 This was soon followed up by Japan’s Ministry of Education issuing new middle school history and social studies textbooks. All twelve textbooks approved for use in the schools claim that Dokdo (Takeshima) belongs to Japan, and four describe South Korea’s sovereignty of the islands as "illegal occupation."28