Osaka's Tenjin Festival traces its origins to 951, two years after Osaka Tenmangu Shrine was established to enshrine Sugawara no Michizane, a Heian-period scholar, poet and statesman who came to be worshipped as Tenjin, the deity of learning. The land procession carried the deity through Osaka's streets with portable shrines, drums, banners, ceremonial costumes and performers. Osaka suffered extensive destruction during World War II, and rebuilding the festival became part of the city's broader postwar recovery. At the same time, television coverage, improved transportation and Osaka's economic expansion turned what had once been primarily a local shrine festival into a nationally recognized summer event. Although commonly grouped with Kyoto's Gion Festival and Tokyo's Kanda Festival as one of Japan's three major festivals, Tenjin Festival retains a distinctly Osaka character.