Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Meiji Restoration took place on the 3rd of January 1868, when domain troops seized the Imperial Palace in Kyōto and Emperor Meiji declared the restoration of imperial rule. The preceding Boshin War and subsequent reforms extended through 1869 and into the early 1870s.
The Meiji Restoration was caused by a combination of fiscal collapse within the Tokugawa shogunate, deep class tensions among samurai, and the arrival of Commodore Matthew C. Perry's American expedition in 1853-1854, which forced Japan to sign unequal treaties and exposed the shōgun's inability to defend Japanese sovereignty. An alliance of southwestern domains, led by Satsuma and Chōshū, ultimately overthrew the shogunal system by military force.
The central figures include Saigō Takamori and Ōkubo Toshimichi of Satsuma Domain, Kido Takayoshi of Chōshū Domain, the court noble Iwakura Tomomi, and diplomat Sakamoto Ryōma, who brokered the Satsuma-Chōshū alliance on the 7th of March 1866. Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the 15th and final Tokugawa shōgun, renounced his administrative powers on the 8th of November 1867.
The samurai class was systematically dismantled. Nationwide conscription was instituted in 1873, the right to bear arms was extended to all males, and in 1876 samurai stipends were compulsorily converted into government bonds. The Satsuma Rebellion led by Saigō Takamori, the last major armed resistance, was suppressed by the Imperial Japanese Army. Many former samurai found new roles as government officials, teachers, or military officers.
Japan rapidly industrialised, with coal production rising from 0.6 million metric tons in 1875 to 21.3 million by 1913, and the railway network expanding from 18 miles in 1872 to 7,100 miles by 1914. Raw silk became Japan's leading export and overtook China in volume, funding purchases of industrial equipment. The costs fell heavily on peasant farmers, who paid land taxes of roughly 30 percent of harvests.
The Boshin War was the armed conflict that secured the Meiji Restoration, running from 1868 to 1869. Chōshū and Satsuma forces defeated the Tokugawa army at the Battle of Toba-Fushimi on the 27th of January 1868. The war ended with the Battle of Hakodate in May 1869, where loyalist forces defeated a breakaway Republic of Ezo established by former bakufu naval commander Enomoto Takeaki.