For how much did Russia sell Alaska to the United States in 1867?

Russia sold Alaska to the United States for $7.2 million in 1867.

Secretary of State William H. Seward negotiated the purchase with Russia's minister to the United States, Eduard de Stoeckl. The treaty was signed in Washington, D.C., on March 30, 1867, and the United States formally took possession on October 18 of that year.

The agreement transferred Russian America, a remote territory that Russia found difficult to defend and administer. The price worked out to roughly two cents per acre. Critics mocked the purchase with names such as Seward's Folly and Seward's Icebox, but the territory later proved rich in minerals, fisheries, forests, and petroleum.

Alaska became a U.S. territory in 1912 and the forty-ninth state in 1959. The purchase is sometimes confused with the later annexation of Hawaii, but Alaska came into American possession through a treaty with Russia.