In Washington D.C., U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes and Dominican Ambassador Francisco J. Peynado sign the Hughes–Peynado agreement, which ends the United States occupation of the Dominican Republic.

Charles Evans Hughes was an American politician, academic, jurist and Christian minister who served as the 11th chief justice of the United States from 1930 to 1941 and first president of the Triennial Convention's new structure called Northern Baptist Convention. A member of the Republican Party, he previously was the 36th governor of New York (1907–1910), an associate justice of the Supreme Court (1910–1916), and 44th U.S. secretary of state (1921–1925). He was the Republican nominee in the 1916 presidential election, narrowly losing to incumbent president Woodrow Wilson.

The Military Government of Santo Domingo was a provisional military government established during the American occupation of the Dominican Republic that lasted from May 15, 1916 to September 18, 1924. The United States aimed to force the Dominicans to repay their large debts to European creditors, whose governments threatened military intervention. On May 13, 1916, Rear Admiral William B. Caperton forced the Dominican Republic's Secretary of War Desiderio Arias, who had seized power from President Juan Isidro Jimenes Pereyra, to leave Santo Domingo by threatening the city with naval bombardment.