page_title: Uraga Channel
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Uraga Channel / History
caption_attribution_description: The USS Columbus (1819) and a crewman in Edo Bay in 1846.
context_page_description: The Uraga Channel is a waterway connecting Tokyo Bay to the Sagami Gulf. It is an important channel for ships headed from Tokyo, Yokohama, and Chiba to the Pacific Ocean and beyond.
context_section_description: In 1846, Captain James Biddle of the U.S. Navy anchored two warships, the U.S.S. Columbus and the U.S.S. Vincennes in Uraga Channel at the mouth to Tokyo Bay.  This was a step in what turned out to be an unsuccessful effort to open Japan to trade with the United States.
  On July 14, 1853, Commodore Perry lowered the anchor of the squadron the Japanese called the Black ships near Uraga at Kurihama (in present-day Yokosuka in Kanagawa Prefecture) at the mouth of the channel.  On the return of the Commodore's squadron in 1854, the ships by-passed Uraga to anchor closer to Edo at Kanagawa, which is where the city of Yokohama now stands.
caption: The U.S.S. Vincennes and an unidentified American crewman in Tokyo Bay (then known as Edo Bay).  The work was created by a Japanese artist of the period.
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