John Contee News Today

Devastated by a lightning bolt, historic residence is part of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater

Commodore Perry’s black ships deliver a letter to Japan in July 1853 Jan. 28 06:51 am JST Jan. 29 | 10:58 am JST It wasn’t a surprise. As early as 1852, a Dutch agent in Nagasaki had given a report to high-level Japanese officials describing an expedition led by Matthew Calbraith Perry, consisting of “two steamships and two other ships.” Japan’s bakufu — the shogunate government in power for the last seven centuries —had limited their trading to China, Korea, Hollan...