Japanese for 'divine wind'. The term was first applied to the typhoons that scattered the Mongol invasion fleets at Hakataka Bay, Kyushu, in 1274 and 1281. The word was later (and more familiarly) used to describe the Japanese Navy suicide pilots at the end of World War II who attempted to crash their explosive-packed aircraft onto Allied warships in a desperate but futile attempt to turn the tide of the war.