The United States bought Alaska from Russia in 1867.
Secretary of State William H. Seward negotiated the purchase with Russian minister Eduard de Stoeckl. The treaty was signed on March 30, 1867, for $7.2 million, or about two cents per acre. The United States formally took possession at Sitka on October 18, 1867.
The purchase was widely mocked by some American newspapers and politicians as “Seward's Folly” or “Seward's Icebox.” Later discoveries of gold and Alaska's strategic importance changed public opinion. Alaska became a U.S. territory in 1912 and entered the Union as the 49th state on January 3, 1959.
Russia sold Alaska partly because it feared losing the distant territory to Britain in a future conflict without receiving compensation. The deal transferred Russian claims and administration; it did not make Alaska part of Canada, which was then under British rule.