The United States bought Alaska 155 years ago today for the whopping price of $7.2 million, or 2 cents an acre.
"Seward's Folly" (named after Secretary of State William H. Seward), added 586,412 square miles to the U.S. along with vast treasure of wildlife, from bear (three kinds) to seal, salmon, trout, whales, beaver, moose and caribou. It was not until the great Klondike gold strike of 1896, however, that Alaska came to be seen as a truly valuable addition.
The purchase of Alaska from Russia still generates intrigue in the modern world.
It seems some of the very first evidence of cyber-chicanery by Putin's commie bastards appeared on the WhiteHouse.gov web site in 2014. As the folks at The Daily Beast note:
Shortly after, in April 2014, we noticed a petition on the WhiteHouse.gov website. “Alaska Back to Russia” appeared as a public campaign to give America’s largest state back to the nation from which it was purchased. Satirical or nonsensical petitions appearing on the White House website are not out of the norm. This petition was different though, having gained more than 39,000 online signatures in a short time period. Our examination of those signing and posting on this petition revealed an odd pattern — the accounts varied considerably from other petitions and appeared to be the work of automated bots. These bots tied in closely with other social-media campaigns we had observed pushing Russian propaganda.
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