Alaska Alaska This article is about the U S state for other meanings see disambiguation For information about the history of Alaska see History of Alaska.
Lisa Murkowski R.
Aleutian UTC west of 30'.
Alaska is the state of the United States It was admitted on January The population of the state is as of according to the census The name Alaska is most likely derived from the Aleut word Alyeska meaning greater land as opposed the Aleut word Aleutia meaning lesser land To the Aleuts this distinction was a linguistic variation distinguishing the mainland from an island.
It is bordered by Yukon Territory and British Columbia Canada to the east the Gulf of Alaska and the Pacific Ocean to the south the Bering Sea Bering Strait and Chukchi Sea to the west and the Beaufort Sea and the Arctic Ocean to the north Alaska is the largest state by area in the United States It is larger in area than all but of the world's nations.
History
Main article History of Alaska
Alaska was probably first inhabited by humans who came across the Bering Land Bridge Eventually Alaska became populated by the Inupiaq Inuit and Yupik Eskimos Aleuts and a variety of American Indian groups Most if not all of the pre Columbian population of the Americas probably took this route and continued further south and east.
The first written accounts indicate that the first Europeans to reach Alaska came from Russia Vitus Bering sailed east and saw Mt St Elias The Russian American Company hunted sea otters for their fur The colony was never very profitable because of the costs of transportation.
At the instigation of U S Secretary of State William Seward the United States Senate approved the purchase of Alaska from Russia for approximately in dollars adjusted for inflation on April and the United States flag was raised on October of that same year now called Alaska Day Coincident with the ownership change the de facto International Date Line was moved westward and Alaska changed from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar Therefore for residents Friday October was followed by Friday October two Fridays in a row because of the date line shift.
The first American administrator of Alaska was Polish immigrant W odzimierz Krzy anowski The purchase was not popular in the contiguous United States where Alaska became known as Seward's Folly or Seward's Icebox Alaska celebrates the purchase each year on the last Monday of March calling it Seward's Day After the purchase of Alaska between and the name was changed to the Department of Alaska Between and it was called the district of Alaska.
President Dwight D Eisenhower signed the Alaska Statehood Act into United States law on July which paved the way for Alaska's admission into the Union on January.
Alaska suffered one of the worst earthquakes in recorded North American history on Good Friday see Good Friday Earthquake.
In the people of Alaska amended the state's constitution establishing the Alaska Permanent Fund The fund invests a portion of the state's mineral revenue including revenue from the Trans Alaskan Pipeline System to benefit all generations of Alaskans In March the fund's value was over billion.
Prior to the state lay across four different time zones Pacific Standard Time UTC hours in the extreme southeast a small area of Yukon Standard Time UTC hours around Juneau Alaska Hawaii Standard Time UTC hours in the Anchorage and Fairbanks vicinity with the Nome area and most of the Aleutian Islands observing Bering Standard Time UTC hours In the number of time zones was reduced to two with the entire mainland plus the inner Aleutian Islands going to UTC hours and this zone then being renamed Alaska Standard Time as the Yukon Territory had several years earlier circa adopted a single time zone identical to Pacific Standard Time and the remaining Aleutian Islands were slotted into the UTC hours zone which was then renamed Hawaii Aleutian Standard Time.