Alaska is one of the 50 states of the USA. According to the United States Census Bureau, it has an area of 570,641 square miles or 1,477,953 square kilometers – roughly 10 times of Bangladesh. Alaska has vast reserves of oil, natural gas, and coal. Alaska was sold to the USA by Russia in 1867 at 7.2 million dollars. Russia was then ruled by Tsar Alexander II. As detailed in the US State Department’s Office of the Historian, Russia originally offered to sell Alaska in 1859 but the sale did not materialize at that time due to the looming US civil war. After the end of the civil war, Russia renewed its offer in 1867 and the then US Secretary of State William Seward accepted it and the process of purchase was set in motion. On May 28, 1867, US President Andrew Johnson signed the deal after approval of the Senate and on October 18, 1867, Alaska was formally handed over to the USA. However, the purchase was criticized by the people and the press as waste of money on “Seward’s icebox” and “Andrew Johnson’s ‘polar bear garden’”. The 7.2 million dollar price paid for Alaska in 1867 is equivalent to around 145 million dollars today which is not even enough to buy the house of Bill Gates in Washington that has a current price tag of close to 150 million dollars.
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This article was published in the Daily Sun on March 15, 2023. Please read the full article here or here.