The United States made the deal of the ages on this day in history, October 18, 1867 – securing the vast Alaska Territory from Russia for $7.2 million.

The transfer of 665,000 square miles of land between future rivals for global hegemony had a profound impact on the geopolitical balance of power that is still felt today.

“The Alaska Purchase in 1867 marked the end of Russian efforts to expand trade and settlement on the Pacific coast of North America and became an important step in the emergence of the United States as a major power in the Asia-Pacific,” writes the U.S. Historian's Office Foreign Ministry.

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After months of international negotiations and political wrangling in Washington, DC, the agreement was ceremoniously reaffirmed with the lowering of the Russian flag from Castle Hill in Sitka and the raising of the American flag.

October 18th is celebrated each year in the Last Frontier as Alaska Day, an official state holiday.

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The land grab amounts to a paltry 1.7 cents per acre for an area more than twice the size of Texas and more than three times the size of California.

Secretary of State William Seward and Russian Minister Edouard de Stoeckl negotiated the agreement.

The treaty sparked a geographical curiosity. The United States and Russia are now immediate neighbors. The two nations are separated by just 2.4 miles of ocean in the Bering Strait between the islands of Big Diomede (part of Russia) and Little Diomede (part of Alaska).

It is said that Russian nationalists today still lament the loss of such a huge treasure of natural resources.

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“If Russia were in possession of Alaska today, the geopolitical situation in the world would have been different,” Sergey Aksyonov, the Prime Minister of Crimea, reportedly said in a local television interview in 2017 on the 150th anniversary of the agreement.

According to numerous media reports, Russian official and Vladimir Putin ally Vyacheslav Volodin said last summer that his country might seek to retake Alaska in response to U.S. and NATO sanctions over the war in Ukraine.

But hindsight is 20-20.

At the time, Alaska was considered a wasteland by both nations.

Tsar Alexander II was reportedly ready to give up the land. American political and media pundits criticized Seward and then President Andrew Johnson's administration for wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on what they saw as an empty, frozen wasteland.

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“Critics attacked Seward for the secrecy of the deal, which became known as “Seward's Folly,” according to the Library of Congress.

“The press made fun of his willingness to spend so much on Seward's Icebox and Andrew Johnson's Polar Bear Garden.”

The New York Tribune and its powerful editor Horace Greeley were among the deal's fiercest opponents.

“The territory which (Russia) held in America was not only worthless… but represented an expense and a problem which the Tsar would be glad to get rid of,” the Tribune reported as early as 1867, when news of the impending deal surfaced , citing the Russian royal family of St. Petersburg as a source.

“Russia would be willing to cede the territory as a gift to the United States if it was desirable for the republic. That's for sure. It is equally certain that Secretary Seward knew about it.”

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It was not until 1880 and subsequent years that public opinion began to change when vast gold treasures were discovered in Alaska.

During the Alaska Gold Rush, Americans began flooding the area, setting it on the path to statehood.

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Alaska joined the union as the 50th state on January 3, 1959, while October 18 remains a celebrated date in the state's history.

“With a parade and a variety of events that extend beyond the Fourth of July, Alaska Day is Sitka’s signature celebration known throughout the state,” reports the state travel site Alaska.org.

“The festival week ends on October 18th with a re-enactment of the flag changing at Castle Hill, the former home of the territorial governor and chief manager of the Russian-American Company.”

Original source of the article: On this day in history, October 18, 1867, the United States purchases Alaska from Russia for a whopping $7.2 million