Alaska History

• 1741 : Vitus Bering (Russia) finds Alaska
• 1743 : Russian fur traders enter the Aleutian Islands
• 1776 – 1779 : Captain James Cook explores Alaska seeking the NorthWest passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic
• 1784 : Russians settle in Kodiak
• 1824 : Boundaries that roughly match modern day Alaska are set by a treaty between Russia, Great Britain and the US
• 1867 : Russia sells Alaska to US for $7.2m (2 cents an acre)
• 1880 : City of Juneau founded
• 1898 : Gold Rush!
• 1906 : Alaska’s first delegate at Congress take office
• 1914 : Alaskan Railroad construction begins
• 1917 : Mount McKinley National Park established
• 1920 : First flights between Alaska and the rest of the US
• 1923 : Alaskan Railroad completed
• 1959 : Alaska becomes a state of the US
• 1964 : The largest earthquake ever to strike North America hits Alaska killing 131 people
• 1968 : Oil discovered in Prudhoe Bay
• 1977 : Trans-Alaska pipeline completed
• 1980 : Congress sets aside almost a third of Alaska in new parks and other land conservation projects
• 1989 : Exxon Valdez hits Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil.
• 1997 : The National Park Service announces it will increase the number of Glacier Bay cruise-ship summer entry permits to 139
• 2001 : Federal judge orders the National Park Service to roll back the number of Glacier Bay cruise authorisations to 107
• 2006 : Voters approve initiative to levy a $50 per head tax on arriving cruise passengers as well as imposing taxes on casino profits
• 2008 : Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska, announced as running mate for Presidential hopeful John McCain