Prince Itō Hirobumi was a Japanese politician, Prime Minister and preeminent member of the Meiji oligarchy. He chaired the bureau which drafted the Meiji Constitution in the 1880s. Looking to the West for inspiration, Itō rejected the United States Constitution as too liberal and the Spanish Restoration as too despotic before ultimately drawing on the British and German models, particularly the Prussian Constitution of 1850.

In 1885, he became Japan's first Prime Minister, an office his constitutional bureau had introduced. He went on to hold the position four times, becoming one of the longest-serving PMs in Japanese history and wielded considerable power even out of office as a member of Japan's genrō and occasional President of the Emperor's Privy Council. A monarchist, Itō favoured a large, bureaucratic government and opposed the formation of political parties. His third term in government was ended by the consolidation of the opposition into the Kenseitō party in 1898, prompting him to found the Rikken Seiyūkai party in response. He resigned his fourth and final ministry in 1901 after growing weary of party politics.

Itō arrived at the Harbin railway station on October 26, 1909, for a meeting with Vladimir Kokovtsov, a Russian representative in Manchuria. There An Jung-geun, a Korean nationalist and independence activist, fired six shots, three of which hit Itō in the chest. He died shortly thereafter.

More Info: en.wikipedia.org