Alaska became the 49th U.S. state on January 3, 1959.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Alaska Statehood Act in 1958, and Alaska entered the Union the following January. Its admission made it the largest U.S. state by area and added a vast territory in the far northwest of North America.
The United States purchased Alaska from the Russian Empire in 1867 for $7.2 million. Critics initially mocked the transaction as “Seward’s Folly,” referring to Secretary of State William H. Seward, but the discovery of gold and later oil helped transform perceptions of the region’s value.
Alaska’s statehood came before Hawaii’s, which followed on August 21, 1959, as the 50th state. Because Alaska spans the western end of the continent and crosses the 180th meridian, it is also geographically close to Russia and includes the nation’s northernmost, westernmost, and easternmost points under commonly used definitions.