The Arctic 162 years ago today: Crimean War in the Arctic (02 Sep 1855) http://omniatlas.com/maps/arctic/18550902/ Other nations were soon to follow the United States in signing treaties with Japan, in particular Great Britain, which was currently fighting Russia in the Crimean War and busy hitting Russian bases along that country's vast coastline. With the use of Japanese ports, the British and their French allies were able to outflank the Russian naval base at Petropavlovsk and chase the outnumbered Russian Pacific fleet into hiding behind Sakhalin (which the Allies thought was a peninsula but the Russians knew to be an island). Nonetheless, the Russians managed to get their own emissary to Japan, opening up favorable relations and partitioning the Kuril Islands between them. #arctic #history #welovemaps #1850s #1855 #allies #arkhangel #china #crimea #crimeanwar #finland #france #greatbritain #japan #kamchatka #kurilislands #maps #napoleoniii #russia #russianhistory #september #september2 #urup (at Petropavlovskkamchatskiy, Kamchatskaya Oblast', Russia)