Historical Dictionary of United States-Japan ... - Bakumatsu Films

xvi • CHRONOLOGY
1833–1837 Famine throughout many areas of Japan.
1837 February–March: Heihachiro Oshio leads uprising in Osaka
against the Tokugawa bakufu.
1837 June–July: The Morrison Incident.
1839–1841 The Opium War between Britain and China.
1841 June: Manjiro Nakahama and four other Japanese survivors of
a shipwreck are rescued by William Whitfield of Massachusetts.
1845–1853 Pinnacle of “Manifest Destiny” in the United States. Most
of Southwest, West, and Pacific Coast north of Mexico and south of
Canada become territories or states of the United States.
1846 27 May: United States Navy Commodore James Biddle arrives
in Japan. Tokugawa bakufu refuses to negotiate for trade and diplomatic
relations.
1846–1848 Mexican–American War.
1847–1848 Ranald MacDonald of Oregon Territory in Japan.
1848 January: Gold discovered in Alta California, Mexican territory,
beginning the Gold Rush. February Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends
the Mexican–American War. Texas, much of the American Southwest,
and California become U.S. territories as a result of this treaty.
1850 Taiping Rebellion begins in China, lasting until 1864.
1850 9 September: California is formally admitted to United States
as the 31st state of the union.
1851 January: Manjiro Nakahama returns to Japan after nine years
in United States and the Kingdom of Hawaii.
1851 March: Hikozo Hamada (later known as Joseph Heco) is shipwrecked
in late 1850, rescued by the American vessel Auckland, and arrives
in San Francisco in March 1851. He remained in the United States
until the fall of 1858.
1853 8 July: United States Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry enters
Uraga Bay near Edo with four warships to present diplomatic and
trade proposals to Japan from the United States government. Perry departs
to return the following year for negotiations.