Contra Costa County, California
In 1821 Mexico gained independence from Spain. While little changed in ranchero life, the Mexican War of Independence resulted in the secularization of the missions with the re-distribution of their lands, and a new system of land grants under the Mexican Federal Law of 1824. Mission lands extended throughout the Bay Area, including portions of Contra Costa County. Between 1836 and 1846, during the era when California was a province of independent Mexico, the following 15 land grants were made in Contra Costa County.
Japan–Mexico relations
In 1874 (fifty-three years after Mexico declared independence from Spain in 1821), a Mexican scientific delegation headed by Francisco Díaz Covarrubias arrived in Japan to witness the transit of the planet Venus through a solar disc. Although the scientific delegation did not have much success, this mission did allow for formal diplomatic relations to begin between the two nations. In 1888 Foreign Ministers Matías Romero and Munemitsu Mutsu signed a Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation; which was to be Japan's first "equal" treaty with a foreign nation and thus formally established diplomatic relations between the two nations.