The KEK laboratory, in Japan, was originally established for the purpose of promoting experimental studies on elementary particles. A 12 GeV proton synchrotron was constructed as the first major facility. Since its commissioning in 1976, the proton synchrotron played an important role in boosting experimental activities in Japan and thus laid the foundation of the next step of KEK's high energy physics program, a 30 GeV electron-positron colliding-beam accelerator called TRISTAN.

We thank KEK for permission to use their images.