On the 18th October 1867, Alaska
was officially transferred from Russia to the United States of America during a
ceremony at Sitka. Russian and American soldiers paraded in front of the
governor’s house; the Russian flag was lowered and the American flag raised
amid peals of artillery.
Known as The Alaska Purchase, the
acquisition of the Alaska territory by the United States was a result of a fear
by Russians of impending war with Britain that would allow the British to seize
Alaska.
The purchase, made at the
initiative of United States Secretary of State William H. Seward, gained
586,412 square miles (1,518,800 km2) of new territory. Originally organized as
the Department of Alaska, the area was successively the District of Alaska and
the Alaska Territory before becoming the modern state of Alaska upon being
admitted to the Union as a state in 1959.
Photo Legacy: Making your memories last forever www.photolegacy.com
Image courtesy of the US National
Archives under The Creative Commons Agreement on Flickr
Research courtesy of Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Purchase
No comments:
Post a Comment