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Events on Friday 30 December 1853 1
1853Gadsden Purchase signedUnited States buys land from MexicoThe United States and Mexico signed the Gadsden Purchase treaty on 30 December 1853, under which the US acquired roughly 30,000 square miles of territory in present-day southern Arizona and New Mexico. The purchase was intended to secure a southern route for a transcontinental railroad. It fixed the modern border between the two countries.