Perry lands at Kurihama; 250 sailors and Marines deliver Fillmore's letter to a closed nation

For 220 years, Japan had turned away foreign ships, sometimes executing shipwrecked sailors who washed ashore. On July 8, 1853, four American warships under Commodore Matthew Perry anchored off Uraga, their black hulls and Paixhans shell guns unlike anything Japanese coastal watchers had seen. Perry refused to deal with any official beneath the shogun's rank and threatened to march on Edo himself. Six days later he landed at Kurihama with 250 sailors and Marines, delivered a letter from President Millard Fillmore, and departed a few days later promising to return for an answer…