September 5 - 1905 - The Treaty of Portsmouth

The Treaty of Portsmouth ended the Russo-Japanese War, which Japan had already effectively won. In many ways, it was the end of a 19th century war, as the Japanese squared off against the Russians over colonial interests and largely settled the war in a series of naval battles. Yet the very fact that the Empire of Japan signed a peace treaty with a European power under the auspices of a U.S. President meant that the world was changing. Japan, which had been entirely isolationist and mostly feudal until 1869's Meiji Restoration, was now able to stand face to face against a colonial power on the world stage. The United States, and especially President Theodore Roosevelt, was also claiming its place as a world power. Russia, meanwhile, had already lost its fleet and now was forced to make territorial concessions at a negotiating table in Maine. The dissatisfaction with the Tsar's government would only grow in the years after the Treaty of Portsmouth. Meanwhile, Japan would expand its interests in China, and the United States took its place as a world leader.

William Floyd