The Alaska Purchase: Why Everyone Was WRONG!

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:00]In 1867, the United States bought Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million, approximately 2 cents per acre.

[00:00:07]The American press called it Seward's Folly and Seward's Ice Box after the Secretary of State who negotiated it.

[00:00:13]Newspapers mocked it as the most pointless purchase in American history.

[00:00:17]30 years later, gold was discovered, then oil.

[00:00:21]Alaska's petroleum reserves alone have generated over $180 billion in revenue.

[00:00:26]The frozen wasteland everyone laughed at turned out to contain more natural wealth than the entire purchase price of the continental United States.