It was gunboat diplomacy at its finest. The United States, ever eager to expand its influence to the Far East, set its sights on Japan, which lay almost straight across the Pacific from San Francisco. Only problem was, Japan was notoriously isolationist. They kept out all European powers save for the Dutch, who were allowed to bring in one ship a year. Unimpressed with either the Japanese or the Dutch, the U.S. decided to send navy commodore Matthew Perry to “persuade” the Japanese to open trade.

On this day, March 8, in 1854, after a diplomatic rebuff on his first time around Perry returned to Edo, the Japanese capitol, to resume negotiations backed an imposing fleet of warships and 1600 men.

The Japanese rulers could see they were militarily vastly outmatched, and gave in to Perry’s demands. Americans would have their re-coaling station and Japan guaranteed security for shipwrecked sailors washed up on the Japanese coasts. The treaty also opened the door for other nations, like Britain and Russia, and the resulting influx of foreign money and people dramatically changed Japan’s political and economic structure.