Morihei Ueshiba (December 14, 1883 April 26, 1969) was the founder of the Japanese

martial art of aikido. The son of a landowner from Tanabe, he studied martial arts in his
youth, and served in the Japanese Army during the Russo-Japanese War. In 1907 he
moved to Hokkaid as the head of a pioneer settlement and studied with Takeda Skaku,
the founder of Dait-ry Aiki-jjutsu. In 1919 Ueshiba joined the moto-ky movement,
a Shinto sect, in Ayabe, and opened his first dojo. He accompanied the head of the
group, Onisaburo Deguchi, on an expedition to Mongolia in 1924, where they were captured
by Chinese troops and returned to Japan. Moving to Tokyo in 1926, he set up the Aikikai
Hombu Dojo. He taught at this dojo and others around Japan, including several military
academies. After World War II he retired to Iwama, and continued training at a dojo he had
set up there. He continued to promote aikido throughout Japan and abroad until the 1960s.
Many of his students became noted martial artists in their own right, and aikido is now
practiced around the world.