Why Russia Sold Alaska to the U.S.
That won't be the only historical irony. Russia was moved to sell Alaska partly because of a war in Crimea, a peninsula that the Russian Empire annexed in 1783 under Catherine the Great. Crimea became part of an independent Ukraine in 1991, and Russia seized it in 2014 in a preview of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
As ironies go, 'it doesn't get much better than that on a grand historical scale,' said Pierce Bateman, a historian at the University of Alaska Anchorage, referring to the location of the Trump-Putin summit.
The $7.2 million purchase of Alaska now looks like a very good deal for the United States. Though it made sense for the Russian Empire at the time, some Russian nationalists see the sale as a historic blunder.
Here's what to know about the forces and people that shaped it, and why its legacy matters:
Russia acquired Alaska during an era of colonial expansion.
Russian explorers reached present-day Alaska in the 18th century by crossing a narrow strait separating Asia and North America. The strait was named after Vitus Bering, the Danish-born mariner sent abroad by Czar Peter the Great in the 1720s to claim new Russian territory.
Professor Bateman said there was a 'wild west' feeling in the territory as early Russian explorers rushed to harvest sea otter furs — a prized commodity in China at the time — in and around the Aleutian Islands.
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