Help explain how the US got control of Alaska.

Russians lacked financial resources to support settlements and a military presence on the Pacific Coast of North America. There were never more than 400 permanent Russian settlers in Alaska at a time. After Russia's defeat in the Crimean War interest in the region was majorly reduced.

Russia offered to sell Alaska to the U.S. in 1859, to offset Britain's plans for the future of the Pacific Coast.

The purchase ended Russia’s presence in North America and ensured U.S. access to the Pacific northern rim.

For three decades the U.S. paid little attention to Alaska. Alaska was governed under military, naval, or treasury rule, or no rule at all.

Alaska was first discovered in 1741 when Danish explorer Vitus Jonassen Bering sighted it on a voyage from Siberia.

The first Alaskan settlement was in 1784 on Kodiak Island.

In 1943, Japan invaded the Aleutian Islands, which started the One Thousand Mile War, the first battle fought on American soil since the Civil War.

Alaska accounts for 25% of the oil produced in the U.S.

Alaska was called America's last frontier.

Alaska has the lowest population density in the nation. Alaska is the U.S.'s largest state.

It was about 2 cents per acre.

The United States aquired an area twice as large as Texas, but it was not until the great Klondike Gold Strike in 1896 that Alaska was seen as a valuable addition to American territory.

Russia lacked the money required to support military presence and establish new settlements along the Pacific coast of North America. Russia believed that Great Britain would take the land from Russia by force. It was politically and strategically preferable for the United States to buy the land than have it taken by the British.

The purchase marked the end of Russian efforts to expand trade and settlements to the Pacific coast of North America

The purchase was a risky investment. The prospects for the Alaskan economy were uncertain at the time of the purchase.

Critics of the purchase believed that the land had nothing to offer

The discovery of gold in the 1890s created a stampede of prospectors and settlers

586,412 square miles were purchased when we purchased Alaska, which is double the size of Texas. It increased the size of America by nearly 20%.

Today, petroleum transported across the state through a pipeline is Alaska's richest mineral resource

The United States has already gotten back 425 times over the $7 million purchase price it paid to Russia, in metals (copper), minerals, timber, oil, and seal and whale trade.

We got it from the Russian Minister in Washington named Edouard de Stoeckl.

It totaled around 591,000 acres of land which is about twice the size of Texas.

Russia wanted to sell Alaska because it was very remote. Sparsely populated and very hard to defend. They didn't have the military presence to defend its land.

Accounts for 40% of the entire US shoreline.

A plane flight from the furthest Aleutian Island to the boundary of S.E. Alaska and British Colombia would equal a flight from LA to NYC.

If Manhattan had the same population density as Alaska, there would only be 14 people on Manhattan Island.

The United States wanted it because it was the last major piece of real estate available for purchase in the northwestern hemisphere.

This is the only state in the US that reaches into the eastern hemisphere.

International date line has to be bent in order to keep the state all in the same day.

One of the flag designs submitted after Alaska was admitted as a state.

Secretary of State William Seward took up the offer from Russia

For the first 3 decades, America didn't pay attention to Alaska. A major Gold deposit was found in 1896 and Alaska was them known for the gateway to Klondike gold field.

Russia sold it to us because they needed money.

No one knew (not even Americans) that it was full of Gold and Petrol. The Russians thought it was just a cold wilderness.

The treaty signed was called Treaty of Cession

Signing the Alaska Treaty in 1867.

President Andrew Johnson signed the treaty on May 28, and Alaska was formally transferred to the United States on October 18, 1867

For a price of $7.2 million, this country got 365 million acres of land and another 13 million of water, at slightly less than two cents an acre