With GUNBOAT DIPLOMACY, the U.S. further forces open JAPAN to FOREIGN TRADE as well, when Commodore Mathew Perry sails his warships into Tokyo Bay, ending the 250-year isolation policy of Japan’s Tokugawa period.

At almost the same moment halfway around the world in California, the state Supreme Court is ruling in PEOPLE V. HALL, 1854 that testimony by Chinese (like that of blacks, mulattos, and Native Americans) cannot be used against whites. This denial of the right to bear legal witness by non-whites is finally repealed in 1872.