Russia and Japan sign peace at a Maine shipyard; the war is over

For a year and a half, Russia and Japan had fought over Manchuria and Korea, a war that bled Russia's treasury and strained Japan's. On September 5, 1905, delegates Sergei Witte and Komura Jutarō signed the Treaty of Portsmouth inside the General Stores Building at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, formally ending the fighting. Japan secured its position in Korea, Russia's lease on the Liaodong Peninsula, and the southern half of Sakhalin. The war had opened with a surprise attack on Port Arthur; it ended with a signature in New England…