diff --git a/telegram/bot.py b/telegram/bot.py
index 6aed87118bb..01a80ea63fa 100644
--- a/telegram/bot.py
+++ b/telegram/bot.py
@@ -108,12 +108,16 @@ class Bot(TelegramObject):
             :obj:`telegram.utils.request.Request`.
         private_key (:obj:`bytes`, optional): Private key for decryption of telegram passport data.
         private_key_password (:obj:`bytes`, optional): Password for above private key.
+        parse_mode (:obj:`str`, optional): Send Markdown or HTML, if you want Telegram apps to
+                show bold, italic, fixed-width text or inline URLs in the media caption. See the
+                constants in :class:`telegram.ParseMode` for the available modes.
 
     """
 
     def __init__(self, token, base_url=None, base_file_url=None, request=None, private_key=None,
-                 private_key_password=None):
+                 private_key_password=None, parse_mode=None):
         self.token = self._validate_token(token)
+        self.parse_mode = parse_mode
 
         if base_url is None:
             base_url = 'https://api.telegram.org/bot'
@@ -256,6 +260,8 @@ def send_message(self,
 
         if parse_mode:
             data['parse_mode'] = parse_mode
+        elif self.parse_mode:
+            data['parse_mode'] = self.parse_mode
         if disable_web_page_preview:
             data['disable_web_page_preview'] = disable_web_page_preview
 
diff --git a/telegram/ext/updater.py b/telegram/ext/updater.py
index 3f050e04255..770c16a602a 100644
--- a/telegram/ext/updater.py
+++ b/telegram/ext/updater.py
@@ -77,6 +77,9 @@ class Updater(object):
             default timeouts and/or control the proxy used for http communication.
         persistence (:class:`telegram.ext.BasePersistence`, optional): The persistence class to
             store data that should be persistent over restarts.
+        parse_mode (:obj:`str`, optional): Send Markdown or HTML, if you want Telegram apps to
+                show bold, italic, fixed-width text or inline URLs in the media caption. See the
+                constants in :class:`telegram.ParseMode` for the available modes.
 
     Note:
         You must supply either a :attr:`bot` or a :attr:`token` argument.
@@ -97,7 +100,8 @@ def __init__(self,
                  private_key_password=None,
                  user_sig_handler=None,
                  request_kwargs=None,
-                 persistence=None):
+                 persistence=None,
+                 parse_mode=None):
 
         if (token is None) and (bot is None):
             raise ValueError('`token` or `bot` must be passed')
@@ -129,7 +133,7 @@ def __init__(self,
                 request_kwargs['con_pool_size'] = con_pool_size
             self._request = Request(**request_kwargs)
             self.bot = Bot(token, base_url, request=self._request, private_key=private_key,
-                           private_key_password=private_key_password)
+                           private_key_password=private_key_password, parse_mode=parse_mode)
         self.user_sig_handler = user_sig_handler
         self.update_queue = Queue()
         self.job_queue = JobQueue(self.bot)
diff --git a/telegram/vendor/ptb_urllib3 b/telegram/vendor/ptb_urllib3
index d2403a79fc3..2c6446aa6cf 160000
--- a/telegram/vendor/ptb_urllib3
+++ b/telegram/vendor/ptb_urllib3
@@ -1 +1 @@
-Subproject commit d2403a79fc38afbdd9aba8a05d274a83dc8bb412
+Subproject commit 2c6446aa6cfeedd5968977fe5f5afae706566c2d