• 1725 - Peter the Great sends Vitus Bering to explore the North Pacific.


• 1728 - Vitus Bering sails through the Bering Strait.
  
• 1733 - Bering's second expedition, with George Wilhelm Steller aboard, the first naturalist to visit Alaska.


• 1741 - Alexei Chirikof, with Bering expedition, sights land on July 15; the Europeans had found Alaska.

The 1867 acquisition by the United States from Russia of 586,412 square miles of land at the northwestern tip of the North American continent now known as Alaska created quite a stir during the ratification process.

Russia had held the territory since 1741, but by the mid-nineteenth century, British and American settlers were pressing Alaska's southern border, increasing the likelihood of territorial quarrels. Furthermore, the Russian treasury was short of funds.

The territory was considered an economic wasteland by the Russians, and in December, 1866 Baron Eduard de Stoeckl, Russian minister to the United States, was authorized to open negotiations with Seward for Alaska's sale. On March 29, 1867, Stoeckl and Seward completed the draft of a treaty ceding Russian North America to the United States, and the treaty was signed on the following day. The $7,200,000 price amounted to about two cents per acre.

Many Americans, however, viewed the purchase as too costly an acquisition. The press mirrored the popular opinion and Seward was ridiculed in the press. "Seward's Icebox" was the catchy tag name for the Alaska Purchase.

The ratification and funding for the purchase by Congress seemed impossible due to the well publicized public outrage. The treaty was submitted for ratification on March 30. Founding Republican Party Senator Charles Sumner eloquently spoke in its favor, and the treaty was passed on April 9, 1867.

With the purchase of Alaska, the United States acquired an area twice as large as Texas, but it was not until the great Klondike gold strike in 1896 that Alaska came to be seen generally as a valuable addition to American territory.