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By 1800, the Tokugawa shogunate had ruled the Japanese islands for two hundred years.
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In the summer of 1853, an American fleet of four warships under Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Edo Bay (now Tokyo Bay).
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In 1858, U.S. consul Townsend Harris signed a more detailed treaty.
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the Sat-Cho alliance (from Satsuma-Choshu) forced the shogun to promise to end relations with the West.
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In January 1868, their armies attacked the shogun’s palace in Kyoto and proclaimed that the authority of the emperor had been restored.
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The country was divided into 75 prefectures. (The number was reduced to 45 in 1889 and remains at that number today.)
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In 1904, Japan launched a surprise attack on the Russian naval base at Port Arthur, which Russia had taken from China in 1
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After their defeat, the Russians agreed to a humiliating peace in 1905.
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In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt made a “gentlemen’s agreement” with Japan that essentially stopped Japanese immigration to the United States.
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In 1910, Japan annexed Korea outright.
