Today in History, July 8th
On July 8, 1853, Commodore Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay to press Japan to open up. Plus the first Wall Street Journal and the last shuttle launch.
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July 8 is best known for 1853, when Commodore Matthew Perry led a squadron of U.S. warships into Tokyo Bay and pressed Japan to open its doors. The date also saw the first issue of The Wall Street Journal in 1889 and the launch of the last space shuttle mission in 2011.
The big story: Commodore Perry sails into Tokyo Bay (1853)
For about two centuries Japan kept the outside world at arm’s length. Since 1639, only Dutch and Chinese merchants had been allowed to trade, and only on Dejima, a small island at Nagasaki. On July 8, 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Tokyo Bay with four American ships, carrying letters from President Millard Fillmore. Japanese officials at first refused to talk to him. With Perry’s better-armed ships threatening to open fire, they backed down and accepted the letters. Perry promised to come back, and he did, in March 1854, this time with nine ships. On March 31, 1854, he signed the Treaty of Kanagawa, which opened the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade and allowed a U.S. consulate in Japan. Other Western powers quickly won treaties of their own. The pressure helped topple the shogunate and, in time, set Japan on the road to modernization.
More events on July 8
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1497 | Vasco da Gama sailed from Lisbon with four ships on the voyage that opened a sea route from Europe to India around the Cape of Good Hope. |
| 1889 | Charles Henry Dow published the first issue of The Wall Street Journal. |
| 1914 | Labor activist and songwriter Joe Hill was sentenced to death in Utah after a murder conviction. |
| 1918 | Ernest Hemingway, then a volunteer ambulance driver, was wounded by a mortar shell on the Italian front in World War I. |
| 1947 | The Roswell Daily Record reported that soldiers had recovered a crashed “flying saucer”. Officials quickly knocked the story down, but the episode later fed a nationwide UFO craze. |
| 1950 | President Harry Truman named Douglas MacArthur commander of United Nations forces in the Korean War. |
| 1959 | Maj. Dale Buis and Master Sgt. Chester Ovnand became the first Americans killed in the American phase of the Vietnam War. |
| 1994 | North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung died in Pyongyang. His son Kim Jong Il succeeded him. |
| 2000 | Venus Williams beat Lindsay Davenport to win her first Wimbledon singles title. |
| 2011 | The orbiter Atlantis lifted off on the final space shuttle mission. |
Born on July 8
- 1838: Ferdinand von Zeppelin, German officer and pioneer of rigid airships, born in Konstanz.
- 1839: John D. Rockefeller, founder of the Standard Oil Company, born in Richford, New York.
- 1951: Anjelica Huston, film actress, born in Los Angeles.
Sources
- Commodore Perry sails into Tokyo Bay, History.com
- This Day in History: July 8, History.com
- On This Day: July 8, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Ferdinand, Graf von Zeppelin, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- John D. Rockefeller, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Anjelica Huston, Encyclopaedia Britannica
