Alaska Purchase
About the Alaska Purchase
Secretary of State William Seward bought Alaska for 7.2 million dollars, about 2 cents per acre. Ridiculed as Sewards Folly and Sewards Icebox, the purchase was vindicated by the gold rushes of the 1890s and the Prudhoe Bay oil strike of 1968, worth millions of times the price. Russia sold to avoid losing it to Britain in war and to weaken its rival presence in North America. The purchase removed Russian power from the continent.
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