Alongside interest on Vine, Wurtz achieved wider popularity in 2016 with History of Japan, a nine-minute YouTube video that outlines Japan's history. Wurtz chose the topic due to his lack of knowledge of it. The video covers key events of its history: "Buddhism, internal conflict, alliances with Britain, World War I, World War II, the dropping of atomic bombs and its post-war economic miracle". It showcases Wurtz's quirky visual and comedic style through a mixture of fast-paced narration and animation, intercut with short musical jingles. The video was described as "an entertaining new approach to education". It went viral on social media after its release on February 2, 2016, and under a week later, received over four million views by February 8. It particularly received considerable attention on Tumblr and Reddit. As of August 2021, the video has over 68 million views. German Lopez of Vox called it a "strange", "pretty good – and surprisingly funny" video. Lopez noted the poor coverage of Japanese war crimes committed against Korea and China in the 20th century, particularly the Nanjing Massacre and the use of Korean sex slaves, and attributed this omission to the video's short runtime. On his questions page, Wurtz responded by suggesting to viewers to look for other channels.
