@@vladescu3g This does not include coloniezed countries which Britain, France and Spain had a large portion. Russia was simply large so it was natural to be connected to several continents.
Fingers We all know you cannot change the fact that Russia was so big or you can just say ‘I hate Russia’ instead of coming up with some facts that everyone knows
@@Krispychikken Its the only Colonial ""Empire" that still exist to this day, free the native people first then you get my respect, i'm also done trying to reason with unreasonable minds here so bye.
Fingers while British still occupies Scotts Wales Ires and Chinese occupied Turks then ignore genocides of natives in Australia America? Obviously the unreasonable mind i m trying to reason with is ridiculously ignorant
well technically speaking the us and russia have maintain a very long relationship without actually fighting a real war against each other so calling them friends is not so much of a streach.
even adjusted to today's dollar, Buying Alaska was such an unreal win for the Americans. To add that much land and resources to your country without any bloodshed has got to be top ten best deals in history!
@@luisfilipe2023 The Oil and Mining is almost secondary. Alaska is home to some of the most valuable air space for the movement of goods and cargo. Like Alaska is so extremely important to export logistics within the USA.
@@mmclaurin8035 Agreed, you could argue that the Louisiana Purchase gave America a ton natural resources and land, maybe even more than alaska, but Alaska is just a great geopolitical location and it does have some natural resources despite being mostly an icy tundra.
When the US found gold and oil Russia wanted Alaska back and got pissed when the US said no. I find that funny as fuck. Russia should have done a bit more searching of the land.
@@rachelslur8729 been around a lot of people from Ireland and other countries where the saying "bloody" gets used a lot. Something I picked up as a kid.
@@Shaz337 true, it couldn't make it on it's own and joined up with America. California was a independent country for 25 days, but the US Navy showed up and said 'your part of America now.' and the powers that be in California at that time accepted it.
As a Canadian I always thought it was bizarre that Russia looked to the US to buy Alaska instead of you know, Canada, the country that Alaska is hanging on to, but then I remembered we had barely graduated from being a British colony at the time and thus no one even knew or cared we existed. Much like today!
>> Russia laughs > Canada laughs > Long term accountant the united states: needs Alaska resources for the next century, to break even ! >> Alaska laughs
Well, technically the Pacific Ocean is in between them. By technicality, despite it being an hours drive if there was a physical bridge, it is over seas.
It's not exactly far from Russia's nearest domains, but it is quite far away, as is all of eastern Siberia, from any meaningful Russian territory. Everything east of the Ural mountains is a sparsely inhabited and difficult to administer tundra, and back then it would have been even more difficult to look after. So I guess what I'm arguing is that it was an overseas colony not just in being technically overseas, but being far enough away from the capital that keeping it protected and under control proved difficult.
From what I see it might be far less than you imagine. As you can see on the map, there's only a short straight b/w Russia's far east Siberia and the US's Alaska. Yet it was never an important theater even during the peak of the Cold war. One of the reasons is that the mother nature in the Far East is even much worse. It's really hard to have the land infrastructure ready to connect the Burin Sea to the heart of Russia (which is around the Urar).
David Freeman the US also flew B52 flights daily over the Russian border that required Alaskan airspace, if the Us had not owned that airspace Alaska would have been a border protecting Moscow from any sort of attack.
When you realize you forgot to include inflation in your calculation... Today that would be more than 192 million dollars. Where the average Hollywood production cost today is about 65 million. I don't blame you for your stupidity, I blame our terrible and completely broken public education system, from which you are a product.
@@danielduncan6806 It was a joke. Of course I didn't account for inflation it wasn't meant to be a serious thing. And why do you feel the need to call me stupid?
@@danielduncan6806 a word of general life advice: you aren't going to make many friends being rude to people for no reason, and most people will think poorly of you for it. You can make the correction without the namecalling, and you won't come across as an immature asshole.
campkira More accurately, it was before the Russian civil war. If the government is overthrown and replaced, it's a new Russia. Old friendships aren't valid anymore.
There was also a key factor: the Czar was a friend of the United States. During the Civil War, England and Germany wanted to intervene on the side of the Confederates, seeing an opportunity to gain land and resources in America. The Czar let them know that in the event they intervened, Russia would enter the war on the side of the Union.
Not entirely true. Britain and France (not Germany, it didn't even exist then) never wanted to intervene, they just kind of lowkey preferred the confederates. They never wanted to invade. Although yes, Russia was friends with the USA. You make a factual point there.
@@ECloudDog France absolutely wanted to intervene. Part of the reason why Napoleon III invaded Mexico was to have a land trade route with the CSA in order to bypass the blockade, so the US civil war could drag out for as long as possible. He had global ambitions for France and a severely weakened US heavily aligned with those interests.
@@ECloudDog "lowkey preferred the Confederates" Brits literally built the CSA 2 warships. There wasn't anything lowkey about it. There's a reason they paid the US $15m in damages and apologized after the war.
Being born and raised in Alaska we learned about why Alaska was sold in elementary school. And one of our high school classes was all about the history of Alaska.
@@loganjulig6227 I imagine southern microbiology consist of learning about sex and the pull out method followed by throwing on the passion of the Christ for remainder of class. (I’m teasing) But yeah, most states require that you take a state history class for your diploma. I definitely see why southern states would gloss over this. Nobody wants to be reminded they had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the civilized world 🤣
Russia: Thanks for purchasing Alaska America! US: You're welcome, hopefully this is the start of many years of prosperity between our two countries! *Cold War has entered the chat*
No they didn’t, the most they did was gives money and weapons to the white army during the Russian civil war, as did other European nations. This along with the whole Capitalist thing is why the USSR was hostile to America.
You have to adjust for inflation. That’s $7.2M in gold, which was tied to US dollar at $21 an ounce. Now gold is almost $2,000 an ounce. That’s over $600 million dollars for Alaska
@@dcbanacek2 Exchange of gifts was part of the ritual. They were allowing an ally to live near them and guard that area against their enemies. They didn't have the concept of selling land. They were prepared to kill the Europeans if they proved faithless or useless allies.
@@dlew3624 rest of Europe thanks the UK for leaving and Germany for all the support during the financial crises and all the effort in making a better, safer, peaceful Europe.
@@TheAllMightyGodofCod bet people in Greece love the EU. Can't wait to leave the corrupt EU. Britain economy is doing great and will do better without being sucked dry by the EU. They need our sterling to prop up euro
Another thing to note is fur trading. Under Russia, Alaska's colonial economy mostly revolved around fur trading, and with over hunting, the whole operation was probably losing them money. The land was originally seen as so overpriced that the purchase was called "Seward's Folly" (Seward was the US secretary of state). A gold rush, and an oil rush later, everyone has flipped their opinions of the purchase.
People forget the USA and Russia used to be good allies. The Russian empire even offered to join the Union in the US Civil war if Britain and/or France joined the Confederacy in the war. France was in favor of helping the Confederacy fight the Union but was only willing to join the war if Britain joined with them. More people in Britain were in favor of helping the Confederacy in the US civil war then helping the Union but there wasn't enough support to get Britain to actually join the Confederacy. The US Civil war would have been even more crazy had Britain and France helped the Confederacy and Russia helped the Union. The US would go on to help bail Russia out in the Russo-Japanese war by Teddy Roosevelt giving the Russians a better peace deal in the war then they actually deserved.
@@TheNinjaDC It was actually the UK more trying to prop up White Russia after the October Revolution (not the Czar). The UK convinced the US to let them take some US troops with them to Russia. After WW1 ended the US wanted to send their troops in Russia home which they did while the UK stayed there for a few more months.
And, if they had found something there worth producing, England would have invaded and taken it away. Best to get some money now than nothing later. Russia had few ships to spare for the Pacific. They only had one rail line to the far east as late as 1905. They basically had no way of protecting it from anyone else who came along and wanted it.
Seriously, even adjusted for inflation this was basically a gift to the US (the figures I can find are around 150 Mio$ in todays money, which is about almost 300 times LESS than Musk paid for Twitter... now let THAT sink in ^^).
@@Vicky21987 i mean it kinda makes sense given that Russians wanted to sell Alaska not for profit but to simply get rid of it. As was stated Alaska was very very far away and remote and so it would be practically impossible for Russia to defend it in case of war with Britain with the Bering sea separating Alaska from the rest of Russia and the Roal Navy dominating the seas. Not surprising why Russia sold it to America instead since they weren't rivals back then and Britain was much more dangerous.
@@diamondwarrior420 I was talking about the distance from European part of Russia to Alaska. Siberia nor the far east weren't developed nearly as much in Russia back then and there were no ready reserves stationed there nor the fleet which they'd had to haul over from other fronts. It doesn't matter if Alaska only few miles away from Chukotka, Royal Navy could plug a few hundred ships into that gap and deny Russians from transporting any reasonable amount of troops or reinforcements to Alaska in case of war.
If we adjust for inflation, in today's money it would cost 108M ( if it was sold for 7.2m in back then's money ) but considering that the dollar was tied to the gold more accurately it would be about 495 million-ish
I would skip inflation number and look at gold. The dollar was 1.5 gram of gold, or 0.0591 ounces, that is: 1 ounce = $18.90. Today, gold is 1300/ounce, or 67.78X. So 7.2M in gold back then is now 495M. This might explain why Stalin was big on real estate acquisitions. Of course, his purchasing currency was in tanks
'Native Americans' weren't a single nation. Who owns what? Who do you pay out of hundreds of bands, tribes, and confederations, many of whom move around and have no formal record keeping or land ownership or legal system? Outside of a few of the urban areas you couldn't 'compensate' most Indians like you would another industrialized nation even if you wanted to.
@Jonny Karr nope, you pulled that number out of your arse. Nobody knows how many there were but there probably were much fewer than that and the vast majority died of disease not 'murder' which the cold hard truth was inevitable unless the Age of Exploration could be delayed until germ theory which is also practically impossible.
The purchase wasn't particularly popular in the U.S. at the time. The sale was referred to as "Seward's Folly" since he was the Secretary of State who arranged the purchase.
@@MrNhanBui But Alaska was a Russian colony/part of Russia. So they owned it and could sell it. Greenland has been independent for many years and is in a Dominion with Denmark, meaning they share our monarchy, they are reliant on our defense and police, they align to Danish foreign policy etc, but they have their own parliament and representatives in the Danish and they have an open opt out that means they can go fully independent from one day to the other if they choose. It is not for Denmark to sell something they dont own. We dont have colonies anymore :-)
greenland is an autonomous danish dominion, like the faroe islands, so the danish cannot sell it, and the faroe islands, greenland and denmark form the kingdom of denmark, so there is another reason greenland cannot be sold
Look man, I've got to make a profit and it's gonna be a while before someone comes through that door looking to buy a colony, so it's going to be taking up a lot of space
Ironically that purchase was technically illegal in the U.S., the president at the time Thomas Jefferson agreed to purchase it with Emperor Napoleon, even though that purchase was completely illegal since he did it without asking Congress for permission since they are the ones in charge of money. Despite that, Congress let it slid since it was so much land in a small timeframe and approved the purchase later on. This is especially ironic for Jefferson to do, since he was a stern believer of following the US constitution and yet he blantly broke it in this one instance.
Brandon Lyon i don’t remember where I heard this, I could be wrong on it, but didn’t Jefferson say that it was a treaty of some sort and not a purchase as a loophole
The real kicker to that deal is the US got the money to buy Louisiana from Dutch brokers who borrowed it from the British! the British would probably not have approved the deal if they had known as Napoleon used the money to finance his wars!
@@godlover9096 it doesn't make any sense, the sell of Alaska was two governments ago (Russian kingdom and USSR). Not to mention if the Ukrainian war is any indication, Russia would lose in weeks against a focused and motivated USA military. Not even sure if China could provide support with the massive corruption crippling their military.
@@MisterTengu I agree. It's just the usual authoritarian government tactic of making up reasons as to why land (or sea in China's case) now suddenly belongs to them. Idk why Russia would be motivated to pick a fight with the US anyhow unless they had reason to believe we would be so preoccupied with something else that the US would be stretched thin.
@@MisterTengu the other thing is just that alaska pretty much has almost no russians anymore, except for a few small communities. even then, those places are by now english speaking and the only thing that ties them to russia is the place's name and the population's ethnicity. the only places are nikolaevsk, aleneva, and fox river. again, all english-speaking.
Fun fact: the Imperial Russian regime was still so unpopular among the American public opinion that it wasn't until the February Revolution that the Americans started accepting the idea of fighting on the side of the now fully democratized Allies.
Lenin gave independence to Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and many others. The Communists didn't want Alaska, Lenin wanted countries to have independence and self government to break up the Russian Empire.
@Usecriticalthinking But the effects of japan owning alaska would have been pretty catastrophic for Allied war effort as Japan needed oil and steel and alaska has plenty of both.
@Usecriticalthinking Well they did already refine a ton of fuel in alaska in the early 30's. Considering oil wells were already been built in alaska in 1902 I would assume japan would have improved alaskas infrastructure to get their hands on more oil as they actually imported over 60% of their oil. It wasn't worth it to build infrastructure in alaska back then for US but its a different tale for Japan.
America bought Alaska from Russia because it was illegal to give money Directly to Russia for their help in the Civil war...Russia helped the North by cutting off supplies to the South from England
What's amazing to me is how much land the US simply purchased. Is there any existing nation that's done anything like this? Or any nation in history that came anywhere close to buying this much land? US made two huge purchases that are each like 5-6 times bigger than your average country. The US was absurdly lucky in being at just the right place in just the right time. Didn't even really cost anything. Purchase price couldve been 1000x more and still be worth it.
@Shelby Sigouin Moron, my point is that the US was fortunate to be in the position it was because it was an extremely unusual circumstance. Not that I believe in some cosmic 'luck'
Sad to say it but in both cases a major factor was that citizens of the "owning" nation hadn't actually settled too much and most of the land was inhabited by native peoples who the US drove out and killed. Still really interesting, I don't know of any other nations even in the Americas with comparable levels of purchases involved.
”Russia had approached the US in the early 1860s regarding a purchase, but they were undergoing this little known event called the American civil war and so were a bit busy” 😂 love the “Later” sign!!!
I remember getting into arguments with people when I moved to the lower 48 from Alaska about Alaska being a state and not a separate country, not being an island next to Hawaii and also it being bigger than Texas. Among other stupid assumptions lol. People would see those pull down maps in class and believe that it was exactly like that lol
Fascinating. Of course, there are also a remarkable number of people who think *New* Mexico is also a foreign country. I was corresponding a couple of years ago with some guy who was convinced you had to go through customs any time you traveled between states, so what are you gonna do?
Considering even this channel represents Alaska as 60% the size of the contiguous US in the video, I think Alaska is still one of those mysteries scientists will never be able to solve. 😄
@@odysseusrex5908 I can second this. I was born in New Mexico and lived around the United States. Most people are convinced that I'm an illegal Mexican immigrant. 😑
It was originally referred to as Sewards Ice box by Americans since most thought it was nothing but frozen wasteland which it kind of was but still. It wasn’t until the Yukon Gold Rush people really got interested in it, and much later in the 50’s when it became clear that it was loaded to the gills with oil.
Putin needs an enemy, because if the US wasn't there to cast the blame on, Putin would have to answer for all the unreasonable spending he has been doing.
Worth mentioning that the Alaska Purchase was viewed somewhat negatively by Americans at the time. It was referred to by a lot of critics as "Johnson's polar bear garden" and "Seward's folly" by many (Johnson being the president and Seward being the secretary of state that negotiated it.
I could see how they might have thought that. Back then it was just a huge vast wilderness without a shared border with the US. Also, couldn't the US have used the $7.2 million to rebuild after the Civil War?
Rare map error! Right around 1:56, your US Civil War map has the correct border(s) with Mexico, but when it wipes to all-blue for 1865, the Gadsden Purchase has suddenly been refunded! Gasp!
I had to do an essay on Alaska in Geography at school. At that time no one knew it had oil and at that time they had little use for it, even if they had known.
@@theexam7394 I live in socialistic country was was communistic once...no difference. Only corrupted politicians found other way to lie...wish they all disappear in new elections in Poland in 16.10.19 but i doubt.
@@WadcaWymiaru what I meant was there's a difference between socialism and communism in political and economic aspects. I can enumerate or give a link if you wish.
Thank you again Sec. of State William H. Seward for pushing for the US to purchase Alaska, and ignoring your critics who called the move Seward's Folly. It's acquisition has to be one of the most strategic moves in history.
Land Surveyors: "Heeeeeeyyyyyy... maybe don't sell this thing... we feel this might actually be very important for farther down the road when neede-" Tsar: "Shut up. I'm doing business. Besides, what use is that hellhole anyway?" "CYKA BLYAT"
That's what this dude forgot to mention. That the general US public referred to the purchase as Seward's Folly because at the time it was seen as a waste of money because Alaska was just a frozen wasteland
This reminds me of my favorite arc in Corey in the House where he accidentally returns Alaska to the Russian prime minister and has to use his stand [The Corey Shuffle] to beat him, the reigning dance champion, in order to win it back.
Russia: I will sell you this worthless parcel of land to you US: ok, deal! So like what do what for it, a crackerjack prize? Also Russia Today: God dammit!
My family was one of the first families who was stationed in Anchorage Alaska in 1967, my father was in the Air force. There was another reason not mentioned here, both are Christian nations so our people are very much alike. I grew up with Russians from the Russian Orthodox Churches that remained in America with some of their families. During the winter they would travel across the ice from a short distance to Russia to visit their families and friends. I love the Russians, they are a proud and strong people of faith.
Make Romania great again Mexico needed money, we (America) wanted land, and had just easily conquered Mexico in the decade prior. America expressed interest in the land, and Santa Anna (mexico’s leader at the time) figured it would be better to sell it then have it be conquered
Well, the video about Siam would be rather short - they didn't agree to ally Japan at first. Six Japanese divisions, their quick war with Siam and a new installed pro-Japanese monarch turned Siam into the Japanese ally Basically Siam was raped
@@scoodoop7203 Wait wut? I'm sorry but as someone who knows a thing or two about Thai history, probably because I'm actually Thai myself, I just had to respond to those dubious claims of yours. The Siamese royal family, including the boy king Rama VIII, were pretty much doing bugger all in Switzerland during WWII, pretty much left exiled after the Siamese political revolution of '32, leaving a pro-Nationalist Thai military dictatorship in control of Siam during WWII, of which decided to jump on the Axis bandwagon and sided with Japan at the right place at the right time. Japan didn't really give a damn about occupying Siam, they just wanted a way to get to British Burma and India without having to cross the rugged Chinese mountains or the British-controlled Indian Ocean. Don't know how you got the assumption of Japan overthrowing the Thai royal family and all, if anybody got raped by the Japanese, it was the Chinese and Philippines, both of which were directly under Japanese occupation during most of WWII. Could've said a lot more but that's pretty much all I wanna say, without having to look at Wikipedia and such.
Thanks for the quick summary! :-) It would've been worth mentioning that it was also contraversial in America at the time, since it was seen by some that as a huge amount of money for essentially "buying a fridge". After the purchase of course, large gold deposits were found and the goldrush started, not to mention the value of all the other useful natural resources. In more recent times (think cold war), the Russians were probably hugely annoyed about the sale becuase Alaska would've had enormous strategic value. It would've also been interesting to hear about how Russia ended up having Alaska, in the first place.
Russia: have fun with your piece of ice! This money was totally worth it US: *digs a hole with a shovel and oil starts to rain from the hole* yay we are richer!! Russia still in economic crisis: blyat.....
@@imiy you'll have to look that up. From my memory it was like 3K or less Russians(including their offspring with Inuit) and like 40k Inuit. There weren't any Americans at the time of sale.
I believe that is the reason why Afghanistan has that tiny sliver of land sticking out. Britain gave that land to them so they wouldn’t be directly bordering the Russian Empire.
Alternate history is so interesting. Imagine if one key event, like the crimean war, had gone another way. Imagine the ramifications for the rest of human history. Crazy stuff.
Yeah there was easily a way for Germany to win WWII because they were almost gonna invade Britain and maybe could have won but they started focusing London and cities.
@@styxscorpion4541 I'm no expert on the specifics on how Germany could have won however I don't blame them for bombing London and other major cities. If you want your enemy to surrender the best odds are to either A. Destroy enough property including industry and cause a huge spike in civilian loses and B. By targeting a well populated area most of the British high command would likely be station at London or some other major city giving the axis a chance to make whoever was left running scared.
@@OmegasTurn There was the unfortunate side effect that bombing London and other British cities sort of gave the RAF tacit permission to flatten Germany in return... so, big picture?
@@styxscorpion4541 There was literally no way Germany could have won against Britain. Look at D Day, where, the Allies had total and complete aerial and naval superiority against B grade German conscripts while they had successfully deceived the Axis into believing the invasion would be at Calais. The Allies almost lost on D Day, and it could have become one of the biggest Allied disasters of the Second World War. Now look at Operation Sea Lion, where Germany has to attempt to land on Britain without any naval superiority (the Kriegsmarine was a pile of shit if you ignore U boats and the Bismarck (which was sunk in 1941 by WW1 era biplanes) and Tirpitz (sunk in 1943 by Lancasters)) while initiating an airborne operation in contested airspace. Not to mention, the vast majority of the British Army was still intact and ready to defend against an amphibious invasion. I'm certain if British High Command found out about Sea Lion they would have just let it happen.
@@tinkaraazb9383 nope, 1) total death toll during all decades of Gulag during Stalin times was less than Auschwitz alone in few years if you want to compare prison/camp complexes. 2) If you want to talk about starvation in central Russia and Ukraine - I would say it's the same as Irish famine in terms of considering or not it a genocide. 3) If just to go to the root of the difference: Germany did actual genocide (on industrial scale and methods) just based on ethnicity and to free up living space for Germans. USSR had the opposite issue - too few people for the vast territory fallen too far behind in competition. USSR did forced and quick industrialization and payed with millions of own citizens lives. USSR did sell crops/food to the West to get money for the initial industrialization while having wide spread famine at home. Killing people was not USSR purpose, it was a consequence of the methods taken. In contrast - killing people was one of the purposes for Germany. 4) Stalin is just a talking head. The whole communism was about full mobilization facing existential threat - they fulfilled their purpose and top talking head is irrelevant, they would have done the same with other random heads. 5) The real culprit are Russian tsarists who collapsed the Russian empire and failed to transform own country to compete using less radical measures.
Russia: We have enough snow and ice. We will sell you some for 10 million dollars USA: We'll do it for 7 million. We only need it to chill our beer and make snow cones. Russia: Peasants!
Yes. It was like: enemy of my enemy is my friend. Considered that USA's war for independence happened at that time not so long ago and Russia and Britain in 19th century were... Not friendly to each other
It's crazy to think at one point, Russia was part of Europe, Asia, and North America.
@@vladescu3g This does not include coloniezed countries which Britain, France and Spain had a large portion. Russia was simply large so it was natural to be connected to several continents.
Fingers We all know you cannot change the fact that Russia was so big or you can just say ‘I hate Russia’ instead of coming up with some facts that everyone knows
@@Krispychikken Its the only Colonial ""Empire" that still exist to this day, free the native people first then you get my respect, i'm also done trying to reason with unreasonable minds here so bye.
Fingers while British still occupies Scotts Wales Ires and Chinese occupied Turks then ignore genocides of natives in Australia America? Obviously the unreasonable mind i m trying to reason with is ridiculously ignorant
@Lee Francis lol dumbo
Russia: sells Alaska because thought was a lump of snow
USA: finds oil
Russia: O_O
Russia has more oil than all of North America combined.
Also gold. Don't forget the gold.
@@TheOriginalJphyper
not mentioning DIAMONDs :)
Мы знали о нефти но она была тогда дешевле бумаги
@@levvy3006 not true. America has no even tapped into its reserves
"Russia and America, friends forever!"
Tragic.
Communism is helluva drug
@@genghiskhan5701 yep
It's not about communism. It's about money.
В америке не было коммунизма со времен ссср
well technically speaking the us and russia have maintain a very long relationship without actually fighting a real war against each other so calling them friends is not so much of a streach.
even adjusted to today's dollar, Buying Alaska was such an unreal win for the Americans. To add that much land and resources to your country without any bloodshed has got to be top ten best deals in history!
Almost as good as buying Manhattan for $24 worth of beads.
Most of the land was useless tundra at the time. It was seen as a mistake obviously no one knew there was oil and natural gas there
@@luisfilipe2023 The Oil and Mining is almost secondary. Alaska is home to some of the most valuable air space for the movement of goods and cargo. Like Alaska is so extremely important to export logistics within the USA.
Louisiana Purchase is up there too
@@mmclaurin8035 Agreed, you could argue that the Louisiana Purchase gave America a ton natural resources and land, maybe even more than alaska, but Alaska is just a great geopolitical location and it does have some natural resources despite being mostly an icy tundra.
Russia:Have fun with your frozen wasteland comrade
USA: *Finds oil and gold*
Russia:Cyka Blyat
When the US found gold and oil Russia wanted Alaska back and got pissed when the US said no. I find that funny as fuck. Russia should have done a bit more searching of the land.
@@chaseviking5096 Russia doesn't search, Russia only assassinates.
@@rachelslur8729 bloody true man
@@chaseviking5096 too bloody... 😂
@@rachelslur8729 been around a lot of people from Ireland and other countries where the saying "bloody" gets used a lot. Something I picked up as a kid.
Alaska: we are the biggest state in the USA!
Texas: you’re adopted
all texans have a very personal vendetta against alaska for being larger
Alaska: SHUT UP MIDGET !!
Technically texas was adopted to
@@Shaz337 true, it couldn't make it on it's own and joined up with America.
California was a independent country for 25 days, but the US Navy showed up and said 'your part of America now.' and the powers that be in California at that time accepted it.
Alaska: Your adopted too.
Texas: MOM!
US: Will you stop yelling? I am trying to get Michigan and Ohio to play along.
I like the scene where Russia and America run on a field of flowers like best friends.
Lol😂😂🤣, I loved that scene too, under a beautiful sky with floating clouds
Best friends FOREVER!
If you like that then you will love the ending to metal gear solid 3
Yes, but it should have been in slow motion with a love song in the background.
watch the next season, things change drastically.
As a Canadian I always thought it was bizarre that Russia looked to the US to buy Alaska instead of you know, Canada, the country that Alaska is hanging on to, but then I remembered we had barely graduated from being a British colony at the time and thus no one even knew or cared we existed. Much like today!
"much like today" so true 🤣🤣
😅
How bout a Hug!!
In this day and age....its better to lay low under the radar.
I think Americans like to forget Canada exists, because it reminds them that they fought a war to gain independence while Canada just asked nicely.
USA: *Finds oil in Alaska*
Russia: "This has been the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals, maybe ever!"
im pretty sure we actually found a ton of gold in alaska so you’re not very far off
>> Russia laughs > Canada laughs > Long term accountant
the united states:
needs Alaska resources for
the next century, to break even !
>> Alaska laughs
@@NinoVenticinque we did and the northernmost town in the US “Barron” only exists because of an oil deposit.
Well, Russia does have massive fields and reserves in Siberia, so it wasn't incredibly devastating for them.
@@FAKELIEN That would be Barrow, not Barron...
“Overseas territory”
*51 Miles (81Km) away from Siberia*
... over a sea, ocean. Though with the islands, it's not even that.
More like 2 km if you include the diamonds islands
Well, technically the Pacific Ocean is in between them. By technicality, despite it being an hours drive if there was a physical bridge, it is over seas.
It's not exactly far from Russia's nearest domains, but it is quite far away, as is all of eastern Siberia, from any meaningful Russian territory. Everything east of the Ural mountains is a sparsely inhabited and difficult to administer tundra, and back then it would have been even more difficult to look after. So I guess what I'm arguing is that it was an overseas colony not just in being technically overseas, but being far enough away from the capital that keeping it protected and under control proved difficult.
The Empire also had parts of California, so it counts even without Alaska
Imagine what the Soviet Union could’ve done if it had Alaska during the Cold War.........
Ya
From what I see it might be far less than you imagine. As you can see on the map, there's only a short straight b/w Russia's far east Siberia and the US's Alaska. Yet it was never an important theater even during the peak of the Cold war. One of the reasons is that the mother nature in the Far East is even much worse. It's really hard to have the land infrastructure ready to connect the Burin Sea to the heart of Russia (which is around the Urar).
@@davidfreeman3083 It is important . At that time the nuclear missiles could not reach the us. So having Alaska woul've helped russia.
David Freeman the US also flew B52 flights daily over the Russian border that required Alaskan airspace, if the Us had not owned that airspace Alaska would have been a border protecting Moscow from any sort of attack.
The white Russians would have fled to Alaska during the Russian Civil war , becoming Russias Taiwan
When you realize that it would cost more to make a Hollywood movie about the Alaska purchase then the actual Alaska purchase
When you realize you forgot to include inflation in your calculation... Today that would be more than 192 million dollars. Where the average Hollywood production cost today is about 65 million. I don't blame you for your stupidity, I blame our terrible and completely broken public education system, from which you are a product.
@@danielduncan6806 It was a joke. Of course I didn't account for inflation it wasn't meant to be a serious thing. And why do you feel the need to call me stupid?
@@danielduncan6806 You're over here calling people stupid, but you're not smart enough to realize it was a joke in the first place.
@@tomerpilo5193 He needs to feel better about his own insecurities, that's why he called you stupid.
@@danielduncan6806 a word of general life advice: you aren't going to make many friends being rude to people for no reason, and most people will think poorly of you for it. You can make the correction without the namecalling, and you won't come across as an immature asshole.
James bizentte: heard this name more than my own sons
lmao
Just name your son James Bizentte and that’ll fix everything.
@@that1scoutcollins851 I think i might have to at this point
Also David archeologists
Why
"The Russian Empire was keen to keep up good relations with the Americans."
*wish we could turn back time, to the good old days*
it was before ww2...
campkira More accurately, it was before the Russian civil war. If the government is overthrown and replaced, it's a new Russia. Old friendships aren't valid anymore.
@Nevvux Rao the cold war started several years before the Korean war
@Nevvux Rao and as far as i know Russia had nothing to do with it.
@Nevvux Rao although it wouldn't surprise me if Russia or should i say the USSR supported north Korea being communist and all
There was also a key factor: the Czar was a friend of the United States. During the Civil War, England and Germany wanted to intervene on the side of the Confederates, seeing an opportunity to gain land and resources in America. The Czar let them know that in the event they intervened, Russia would enter the war on the side of the Union.
He even sent 12 warships to America's western coastline.
Not entirely true. Britain and France (not Germany, it didn't even exist then) never wanted to intervene, they just kind of lowkey preferred the confederates. They never wanted to invade.
Although yes, Russia was friends with the USA. You make a factual point there.
1868.
@@ECloudDog France absolutely wanted to intervene. Part of the reason why Napoleon III invaded Mexico was to have a land trade route with the CSA in order to bypass the blockade, so the US civil war could drag out for as long as possible. He had global ambitions for France and a severely weakened US heavily aligned with those interests.
@@ECloudDog "lowkey preferred the Confederates" Brits literally built the CSA 2 warships. There wasn't anything lowkey about it. There's a reason they paid the US $15m in damages and apologized after the war.
Being born and raised in Alaska we learned about why Alaska was sold in elementary school. And one of our high school classes was all about the history of Alaska.
very based
Man I wish here in South Carolina they taught us about Alaska but no instead we have to learn about "microbiology" or something
@@loganjulig6227ahhh yes, the good ol south. The cradle of scientific discovery.
@@Bob-kk2vg Ikr
@@loganjulig6227 I imagine southern microbiology consist of learning about sex and the pull out method followed by throwing on the passion of the Christ for remainder of class. (I’m teasing)
But yeah, most states require that you take a state history class for your diploma. I definitely see why southern states would gloss over this. Nobody wants to be reminded they had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the civilized world 🤣
Russia: Thanks for purchasing Alaska America!
US: You're welcome, hopefully this is the start of many years of prosperity between our two countries!
*Cold War has entered the chat*
To be fair, the Russians had a bit of change in leadership since then.
@@brandonlyon730 not just russia
To be fair America invaded Russia
No they didn’t, the most they did was gives money and weapons to the white army during the Russian civil war, as did other European nations. This along with the whole Capitalist thing is why the USSR was hostile to America.
It should be "Communism has entered the chat". But I appreciate the humour in this time of need.
FYI:
$7.2 million in 1867 is worth about $127 million today
there still houses in the US more expensive then alaska
Still an absolute steal what a great deal.
@Simon oil and gold was found worth 10x or more what they paid Russia.
You have to adjust for inflation. That’s $7.2M in gold, which was tied to US dollar at $21 an ounce. Now gold is almost $2,000 an ounce. That’s over $600 million dollars for Alaska
@NormalSodaGuy I didn’t say it was a bad deal
Russia: "This has been the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals, maybe ever,”
Delaware Indians in 1626: Manhattan Island is worth how many beads? Sold.
@@dcbanacek2 Exchange of gifts was part of the ritual. They were allowing an ally to live near them and guard that area against their enemies. They didn't have the concept of selling land. They were prepared to kill the Europeans if they proved faithless or useless allies.
Don't forget treason mays Brexit deal. Worst in history" Germany finally conquers Europe. Hitler would have a massive boner.
@@dlew3624 rest of Europe thanks the UK for leaving and Germany for all the support during the financial crises and all the effort in making a better, safer, peaceful Europe.
@@TheAllMightyGodofCod bet people in Greece love the EU. Can't wait to leave the corrupt EU. Britain economy is doing great and will do better without being sucked dry by the EU. They need our sterling to prop up euro
Another thing to note is fur trading. Under Russia, Alaska's colonial economy mostly revolved around fur trading, and with over hunting, the whole operation was probably losing them money. The land was originally seen as so overpriced that the purchase was called "Seward's Folly" (Seward was the US secretary of state). A gold rush, and an oil rush later, everyone has flipped their opinions of the purchase.
-Russia and the U.S.
-Best friends forever.
-FOREVAAAAAR
@al bar Before Red October Happened
Communism happens well a few decades later anyway.
People forget the USA and Russia used to be good allies. The Russian empire even offered to join the Union in the US Civil war if Britain and/or France joined the Confederacy in the war. France was in favor of helping the Confederacy fight the Union but was only willing to join the war if Britain joined with them. More people in Britain were in favor of helping the Confederacy in the US civil war then helping the Union but there wasn't enough support to get Britain to actually join the Confederacy. The US Civil war would have been even more crazy had Britain and France helped the Confederacy and Russia helped the Union. The US would go on to help bail Russia out in the Russo-Japanese war by Teddy Roosevelt giving the Russians a better peace deal in the war then they actually deserved.
Well, the US was a good friend with Czarist Russia till the end, and and even a little farther as we tried to prop up the corpse.
@@TheNinjaDC It was actually the UK more trying to prop up White Russia after the October Revolution (not the Czar). The UK convinced the US to let them take some US troops with them to Russia. After WW1 ended the US wanted to send their troops in Russia home which they did while the UK stayed there for a few more months.
And today Alaska probably produces enough oil and other natural ressources worth that price they sold it for every day.
it's not like russiahas need of natural resources though
Matthias S1234 *resources
Remember that inflation did exist
You know there's a little thing called inflation, ever heard of it?
And, if they had found something there worth producing, England would have invaded and taken it away. Best to get some money now than nothing later. Russia had few ships to spare for the Pacific. They only had one rail line to the far east as late as 1905. They basically had no way of protecting it from anyone else who came along and wanted it.
This just shows you don’t need a 20 minute video with five ads in between to answer one question.
Crazy to think that there are cars more expensive than entire land masses
Seriously, even adjusted for inflation this was basically a gift to the US (the figures I can find are around 150 Mio$ in todays money, which is about almost 300 times LESS than Musk paid for Twitter... now let THAT sink in ^^).
@@Vicky21987 i mean it kinda makes sense given that Russians wanted to sell Alaska not for profit but to simply get rid of it. As was stated Alaska was very very far away and remote and so it would be practically impossible for Russia to defend it in case of war with Britain with the Bering sea separating Alaska from the rest of Russia and the Roal Navy dominating the seas. Not surprising why Russia sold it to America instead since they weren't rivals back then and Britain was much more dangerous.
@@s1ckenlng alaska is a few miles from russia what are you taking about
@@diamondwarrior420 I was talking about the distance from European part of Russia to Alaska. Siberia nor the far east weren't developed nearly as much in Russia back then and there were no ready reserves stationed there nor the fleet which they'd had to haul over from other fronts. It doesn't matter if Alaska only few miles away from Chukotka, Royal Navy could plug a few hundred ships into that gap and deny Russians from transporting any reasonable amount of troops or reinforcements to Alaska in case of war.
I can see Russia from my house
If we adjust for inflation, in today's money it would cost 108M ( if it was sold for 7.2m in back then's money ) but considering that the dollar was tied to the gold more accurately it would be about 495 million-ish
Only 108? That’s literally nothing for land that size
@@mrjackson3426 That is just Inflation. The Purchasing Power of that money back then was far greater than 108 million USD today.
I would skip inflation number and look at gold. The dollar was 1.5 gram of gold, or 0.0591 ounces, that is: 1 ounce = $18.90. Today, gold is 1300/ounce, or 67.78X. So 7.2M in gold back then is now 495M. This might explain why Stalin was big on real estate acquisitions. Of course, his purchasing currency was in tanks
@@joechang8696 Thats still pretty amazingly cheap. Jeff bezos could have bought more than a hundred Alaskas for that price
Alaska's gdp is 47 billion. That is like purchasing a multi million dollar mansion for $1000.
America to America: Alright don't tell Alaska that he was adopted.
Alaska’s a boy?
@@EstudosTeshuvahComVancler yes
Ryan, and California, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah were kidnapped
Excuse me, did you just assume Alaska’s gender!?!? REEEE!!!!!
@@AldoHExse they were actually sold by Mexico. Also you forgot Arizona.
NATIVE AMERICANS BE LIKE: "YOU GUYS ARE GETTING PAID"
Lmao
'Native Americans' weren't a single nation. Who owns what? Who do you pay out of hundreds of bands, tribes, and confederations, many of whom move around and have no formal record keeping or land ownership or legal system? Outside of a few of the urban areas you couldn't 'compensate' most Indians like you would another industrialized nation even if you wanted to.
at least the Oneida figured out how shit works and bought a bunch of land from the Menominee.
@Jonny Karr nope, you pulled that number out of your arse. Nobody knows how many there were but there probably were much fewer than that and the vast majority died of disease not 'murder' which the cold hard truth was inevitable unless the Age of Exploration could be delayed until germ theory which is also practically impossible.
@@archieames1968 i cant even watch this shit without having you be a neo nazi parasite in the comments.
The purchase wasn't particularly popular in the U.S. at the time. The sale was referred to as "Seward's Folly" since he was the Secretary of State who arranged the purchase.
Until oil, gold, fish said money money money
@@monkofdarktimes
You both share good points of Russia-USA history
You can buy Alaska for the prize of a flat in Maanhattan.
you can buy alaska for the same price as a car
Inflation bois. Dont forget😂
Allen Baby it’s sad to see people that think things were just cheaper.
$7,200,000 in 1867 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $124,729,783.78 in 2020.
Bot
Purchasing power? That’s a new one.
Just Imagine the cold war with "Alaska SSR" Bloody Hell
Fun fact: the Soviet Union made propaganda in the 1930’s about taking Alaska back, so that could’ve been a reality if the Soviets cared enough
@Some Guy kkkkkkkkk I'm Brazilian mate
Brian Barlow
He said in the 30's. Back then, there were no nukes.
@@marcelomayerhofer2668 Cuidado piso molhado
@@lonelittlejerry917 In Portuguese this don't make much sense kkkkkkkkk
Next time , " Why did Denmark sell Greenland to America ? "
Lots of resources under that melting ice
Or demons
Well, Greenland is a sovereign state, so we wont sell it. Dont worry :-)
@@beersmurff i bet some rusians under graves have same statement =))
@@MrNhanBui But Alaska was a Russian colony/part of Russia. So they owned it and could sell it. Greenland has been independent for many years and is in a Dominion with Denmark, meaning they share our monarchy, they are reliant on our defense and police, they align to Danish foreign policy etc, but they have their own parliament and representatives in the Danish and they have an open opt out that means they can go fully independent from one day to the other if they choose. It is not for Denmark to sell something they dont own. We dont have colonies anymore :-)
greenland is an autonomous danish dominion, like the faroe islands, so the danish cannot sell it, and the faroe islands, greenland and denmark form the kingdom of denmark, so there is another reason greenland cannot be sold
“The Russian empire was keen on keeping up with good relationshop with the US”
Communism and Cold War: allow us to introduce ourselves
I imagine the USA sent the pawn stars guy to negotiate on their behalf
They will probably send Corey and Rick while Chumlee would be kill by a bear
Rick
Look man, I've got to make a profit and it's gonna be a while before someone comes through that door looking to buy a colony, so it's going to be taking up a lot of space
Best I can do is $7.2 million
And he made that final offer after, of course, calling a specialist
So, the same reason France sold Lousiana to the US so cheap; to keep it out of UK's hands.
Not the UK, the US. Napoleon knew Louisiana would be invaded anyway so might as well collect some money by giving it up peacefully.
Ironically that purchase was technically illegal in the U.S., the president at the time Thomas Jefferson agreed to purchase it with Emperor Napoleon, even though that purchase was completely illegal since he did it without asking Congress for permission since they are the ones in charge of money. Despite that, Congress let it slid since it was so much land in a small timeframe and approved the purchase later on. This is especially ironic for Jefferson to do, since he was a stern believer of following the US constitution and yet he blantly broke it in this one instance.
Brandon Lyon i don’t remember where I heard this, I could be wrong on it, but didn’t Jefferson say that it was a treaty of some sort and not a purchase as a loophole
Napoleon was very smart he probably had spies in America telling him that they were planning to seize that land anyway .
The real kicker to that deal is the US got the money to buy Louisiana from Dutch brokers who borrowed it from the British! the British would probably not have approved the deal if they had known as Napoleon used the money to finance his wars!
Russia: sells land for $7,200,000
U.S.: finds way more gold and oil worth the price
Russia: stonks
@@dogeboi2093 There still was gold and oil tho. And gold and oil was more expensive in the 1890s.
Cyka blyat
@@dogeboi2093 " there wasn't much gold or oil on Alaska back then " , yeah I guess all these minerals just formed in in a few years right ?
@Arthur Morgan what is it?
Alaska doesent matter russia still has more nukes than the us
This video has suddenly become relevant again.
I just heard about that. Do you think this will be used as a pretense for war with the US?
@@godlover9096 it doesn't make any sense, the sell of Alaska was two governments ago (Russian kingdom and USSR).
Not to mention if the Ukrainian war is any indication, Russia would lose in weeks against a focused and motivated USA military. Not even sure if China could provide support with the massive corruption crippling their military.
@@MisterTengu I agree. It's just the usual authoritarian government tactic of making up reasons as to why land (or sea in China's case) now suddenly belongs to them. Idk why Russia would be motivated to pick a fight with the US anyhow unless they had reason to believe we would be so preoccupied with something else that the US would be stretched thin.
Huh? What has happened?
@@MisterTengu the other thing is just that alaska pretty much has almost no russians anymore, except for a few small communities. even then, those places are by now english speaking and the only thing that ties them to russia is the place's name and the population's ethnicity. the only places are nikolaevsk, aleneva, and fox river. again, all english-speaking.
“The Russian empire was also keen to keep up it’s good relations with the Americans”
100 years later: *Oh how the tables have turned*
Oh how the turntables
Fun fact: the Imperial Russian regime was still so unpopular among the American public opinion that it wasn't until the February Revolution that the Americans started accepting the idea of fighting on the side of the now fully democratized Allies.
@Aggressive Tubesocklies
Oh how the turns have tabled
Alliances change with time.
Britain: I'm gonna control all land north of the USA in the future
Russia: How about no?
*Sells it to the USA*
They like border gore
@tamenga88 Yeah, that would have been WWIII. Maybe better that they did sell it.
Lmao, he literally states in the video the UK wasn't interested. How exactly does this 'joke work?
@@Wanderer628 because people don't watch the whole video. They read the title and scroll to the comments section and just engage in ignorant comments.
Britain: how bout i do anyway
So neither Russia, USA or Britain really gave a darn about Alaska
ironically, Russia offered to buy it back after the Alaskan gold rush.
@@tbush6657 Apparently the surveyors didn't do their job very well
@@brianlam257 well they did want to keep it. Maybe found gold but didnt want to tell anyone
@@SassyP17 There's a gold mine sitting beneath us. We need to do something
Ma Sato Hey, Alaska is cool!
Extremely helpful. So much packed in such a short time, yet so easy to understand
Russian Empire: we would sell Alaska to the US to improve relations
Certain bald guy in 1917: I am going to stop you right there
@@apexefun9164 you are sut a dumb
APEXE Fun communist
Lenin gave independence to Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and many others. The Communists didn't want Alaska, Lenin wanted countries to have independence and self government to break up the Russian Empire.
It was more Stalin to be honest.
@Levvy What do you mean Lenin gave independence? I don't recollect him letting anything out of his grasp voluntarily.
Imagine if it had remained Russian
ALASKAN MISSILE CRISIS
Then imagine ww2 with Alaska in Japanese hands.
@Usecriticalthinking But the effects of japan owning alaska would have been pretty catastrophic for Allied war effort as Japan needed oil and steel and alaska has plenty of both.
@Usecriticalthinking Well they did already refine a ton of fuel in alaska in the early 30's. Considering oil wells were already been built in alaska in 1902 I would assume japan would have improved alaskas infrastructure to get their hands on more oil as they actually imported over 60% of their oil. It wasn't worth it to build infrastructure in alaska back then for US but its a different tale for Japan.
@@dean1039 No need to imagine they invaded the Aleutian islands in world war two which are technically part of Alaska.
Lol
Russia : " yes it's for sale"
America : " We'll take it"
Indigenous natives : " but but wait"
@European Awakening What was the war
@European Awakening This isn't the colonial era.
Lonely Spirit the war was when they couldn’t stop the Russians.
America bought Alaska from Russia because it was illegal to give money Directly to Russia for their help in the Civil war...Russia helped the North by cutting off supplies to the South from England
@@johannesgrunder290 Genocide more like a war the Natives in America put up a fight and a good one at that.
What's amazing to me is how much land the US simply purchased. Is there any existing nation that's done anything like this? Or any nation in history that came anywhere close to buying this much land? US made two huge purchases that are each like 5-6 times bigger than your average country.
The US was absurdly lucky in being at just the right place in just the right time. Didn't even really cost anything. Purchase price couldve been 1000x more and still be worth it.
@Shelby Sigouin Moron, my point is that the US was fortunate to be in the position it was because it was an extremely unusual circumstance. Not that I believe in some cosmic 'luck'
As an American I love that way of acquiring new land better than conquest. I love it when nobody's sons get killed in war.
Sad to say it but in both cases a major factor was that citizens of the "owning" nation hadn't actually settled too much and most of the land was inhabited by native peoples who the US drove out and killed. Still really interesting, I don't know of any other nations even in the Americas with comparable levels of purchases involved.
@@gothenmosph5151 Call my woman a name again and see what happens
@@SuperNoticer oh look an internet tough guy
2:07 that aged well
And still it's going on with worse stuff....
”Russia had approached the US in the early 1860s regarding a purchase, but they were undergoing this little known event called the American civil war and so were a bit busy” 😂 love the “Later” sign!!!
Russia: I'd like to get $10 million for it.
US: Yeah, best I can do is $7.2 million and I'm taking a HUGE risk here!
Tbf we didn't really know what it would be worth, so it was a fair risk
USA: "One Alaska please"
Muscovites: "OK"
Russia: We'll sell it for 10 million
*Rick Harrison breaks through the door*
Rick: I can only do 30
You a blitz player?
@@Dienow3xw yea
@@ceasefire915 hell yea dude.
Lol and the Old Man would say "Kids don’t know how to play these days, and that’s what’s wrong with the damn world"
@@Dienow3xw blitz is the best war-gaming game
The "Shut up, nerd" sign makes me laugh every time you use it for some reason
I remember getting into arguments with people when I moved to the lower 48 from Alaska about Alaska being a state and not a separate country, not being an island next to Hawaii and also it being bigger than Texas. Among other stupid assumptions lol. People would see those pull down maps in class and believe that it was exactly like that lol
Fascinating. Of course, there are also a remarkable number of people who think *New* Mexico is also a foreign country. I was corresponding a couple of years ago with some guy who was convinced you had to go through customs any time you traveled between states, so what are you gonna do?
Considering even this channel represents Alaska as 60% the size of the contiguous US in the video, I think Alaska is still one of those mysteries scientists will never be able to solve. 😄
@@odysseusrex5908 I can second this.
I was born in New Mexico and lived around the United States.
Most people are convinced that I'm an illegal Mexican immigrant. 😑
But wouldn't you like the island next to Hawaii to be actually true? In my country we have an expression: The wish is the father of the thought...
Well then why don’t you go back to your country if you don’t like it here. Oh wait
It was originally referred to as Sewards Ice box by Americans since most thought it was nothing but frozen wasteland which it kind of was but still. It wasn’t until the Yukon Gold Rush people really got interested in it, and much later in the 50’s when it became clear that it was loaded to the gills with oil.
And Anchorage itself became a strategic point for the aviation industry during the Cold War and once again with a heavily sanctioned Russia.
Last time I was this early alaska was still a dominion of the Russian empire
Abdulla Alzarooni Alzarooni I like your middle/last name
*S O O N*
And so was NorCal. Sebastopol, California. Beautiful Russian Orthodox church there.
I wish that the USA and Russia were actually good friends. This adversarial relationship is getting old.
Yes the US was great friends with white russia, the soviets were the enemies.
No Russian Revolution would've probably made the world better
One day when the new generation want peace
They aren't that bad of enemies tbh. Usa still supplies them with shit and probably visa versa
Putin needs an enemy, because if the US wasn't there to cast the blame on, Putin would have to answer for all the unreasonable spending he has been doing.
Worth mentioning that the Alaska Purchase was viewed somewhat negatively by Americans at the time. It was referred to by a lot of critics as "Johnson's polar bear garden" and "Seward's folly" by many (Johnson being the president and Seward being the secretary of state that negotiated it.
Also... "Seward's Icebox"
I could see how they might have thought that. Back then it was just a huge vast wilderness without a shared border with the US. Also, couldn't the US have used the $7.2 million to rebuild after the Civil War?
The discovery of gold and oil more than made up for it.
Rare map error! Right around 1:56, your US Civil War map has the correct border(s) with Mexico, but when it wipes to all-blue for 1865, the Gadsden Purchase has suddenly been refunded! Gasp!
Fun fact: The Tsar at the time first offered alaska to the House of Liechtenstein, but the prince turned down the offer.
Because there was no way he could keep it secure after the purchase. Most likely Britain would have just taken it from the Prince after the purchase.
I had to do an essay on Alaska in Geography at school. At that time no one knew it had oil and at that time they had little use for it, even if they had known.
2:00 "One Alaska please!" 🤣
Fun fact Russia actually tried to sell Alaska to Liechtenstein but they where refused.
_____FRIENDS FOREVER____ 😆
That completely distracted me from the facts.
It's subliminal but true per se. If you want me to elaborate. Just ask.
Socialism...that cancer that infected the world...without it, it would be worldwide peace...
@@WadcaWymiaru there's a difference between socialism and communism.
@@theexam7394
I live in socialistic country was was communistic once...no difference.
Only corrupted politicians found other way to lie...wish they all disappear in new elections in Poland in 16.10.19 but i doubt.
@@WadcaWymiaru what I meant was there's a difference between socialism and communism in political and economic aspects. I can enumerate or give a link if you wish.
Thank you again Sec. of State William H. Seward for pushing for the US to purchase Alaska, and ignoring your critics who called the move Seward's Folly. It's acquisition has to be one of the most strategic moves in history.
2:27 love how the right man's riband goes over the waistcoat and under the morning coat. It's the little details
Land Surveyors: "Heeeeeeyyyyyy... maybe don't sell this thing... we feel this might actually be very important for farther down the road when neede-"
Tsar: "Shut up. I'm doing business. Besides, what use is that hellhole anyway?"
"CYKA BLYAT"
1868: everyone : this land is a cool piece of junk!
1890s US:WE GOT THE OIL AND GOLD WHO GOT THE cool piece of junk!!
That's what this dude forgot to mention. That the general US public referred to the purchase as Seward's Folly because at the time it was seen as a waste of money because Alaska was just a frozen wasteland
@@Spongebrain97i know that US public of the time did not 'like him purchase it!
wow, what humans could make value of some dead organisms some shiny rock
who woulda known
They also referred to it as "Seward's Polar Bear Garden" which I think is funnier.
Last time I was this early there was no sea between Russia and alaska
Ancient Accounts - Animated History that sentence gave me cancer
@@RafaelTopgunStudios f
Last time I was this early, Trump and Epstein were still fucking the same boy!!
"Best friends forever"
*_hehe_*
*_heheheeheeehehehe_*
(Disappears in a dark alley way)
*_heheehehehehehe_*
coughCOMMUNISIMcough
Puiiitwergrigfginn
2:06 Russia and the States running across what seems to be a green field in the Netherlands yelling, "Friends forever!"
Ah, if they only knew.
This reminds me of my favorite arc in Corey in the House where he accidentally returns Alaska to the Russian prime minister and has to use his stand [The Corey Shuffle] to beat him, the reigning dance champion, in order to win it back.
hahah wtf
That was awsome
Is this a JOJO reference!?!?
So, we can say that before Crimean war sun didn't set in Russian Empire too.
With No australia ? Sun did set
@@kaushalmehta8383 Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk are at roughly the same longitude as Australia
2:08 U.S x Russia friends forever lol ...
Sweet dreams
I wish. The world would be a better place if Russia and America put their differences aside for the greater good.
@Car Tifusar I beg your pardon.
@@imperialwyvern what he said
You don't understand humans we are all greedy bois
@@fitmotheyap I understood what he said. What I was actually asking is why he asked me such a stupidly obvious question.
Russia: I will sell you this worthless parcel of land to you
US: ok, deal! So like what do what for it, a crackerjack prize?
Also Russia Today: God dammit!
My family was one of the first families who was stationed in Anchorage Alaska in 1967, my father was in the Air force.
There was another reason not mentioned here, both are Christian nations so our people are very much alike.
I grew up with Russians from the Russian Orthodox Churches that remained in America with some of their families. During the winter they would travel across the ice from a short distance to Russia to visit their families and friends.
I love the Russians, they are a proud and strong people of faith.
Good for you..
Shut up nerd.
Little Green Say something intelligent.
@@saintroberts1328 no
And Britain wasn't Christian? Nice pivot attempt, though.
At 1:58 the US map is wrong because it doesn't include the Gasden Purchase. This is just a nitpick though, great video!
What is the Gasden Purchase?
@@makeromaniagreatagain9697 In 1853, the US bought a small chunk of land from Mexico for a railroad
Make Romania great again Mexico needed money, we (America) wanted land, and had just easily conquered Mexico in the decade prior. America expressed interest in the land, and Santa Anna (mexico’s leader at the time) figured it would be better to sell it then have it be conquered
@@bigweevil thanks
@@garretsheets3080 When you realized the US paid more for a strip of desert (Gasden Purchase $10) than massive resource filled Alaska (7.2 million)
You should do "Why Siam / Thailand joined the WW2 as an ally of Japan" or "Russian interests in Alaska and California"
@@LYNESTARx REEEEEEEEEEEEE... Why do you care about Siam?
@@maxstone2380 Who cares about Alaska?
Well, the video about Siam would be rather short - they didn't agree to ally Japan at first. Six Japanese divisions, their quick war with Siam and a new installed pro-Japanese monarch turned Siam into the Japanese ally
Basically Siam was raped
scoodoop that escalated fast.
@@scoodoop7203 Wait wut? I'm sorry but as someone who knows a thing or two about Thai history, probably because I'm actually Thai myself, I just had to respond to those dubious claims of yours. The Siamese royal family, including the boy king Rama VIII, were pretty much doing bugger all in Switzerland during WWII, pretty much left exiled after the Siamese political revolution of '32, leaving a pro-Nationalist Thai military dictatorship in control of Siam during WWII, of which decided to jump on the Axis bandwagon and sided with Japan at the right place at the right time. Japan didn't really give a damn about occupying Siam, they just wanted a way to get to British Burma and India without having to cross the rugged Chinese mountains or the British-controlled Indian Ocean. Don't know how you got the assumption of Japan overthrowing the Thai royal family and all, if anybody got raped by the Japanese, it was the Chinese and Philippines, both of which were directly under Japanese occupation during most of WWII. Could've said a lot more but that's pretty much all I wanna say, without having to look at Wikipedia and such.
Thanks for the quick summary! :-)
It would've been worth mentioning that it was also contraversial in America at the time, since it was seen by some that as a huge amount of money for essentially "buying a fridge". After the purchase of course, large gold deposits were found and the goldrush started, not to mention the value of all the other useful natural resources.
In more recent times (think cold war), the Russians were probably hugely annoyed about the sale becuase Alaska would've had enormous strategic value.
It would've also been interesting to hear about how Russia ended up having Alaska, in the first place.
3m video teaches me more history than my 1 week of history class.....
Giorgos Toskas That’s because schools don’t want to teach proper history - there’s a reason for that ! 😎
not really
Nah. My history teacher is very flexible and fun, so his class is enjoyable. I usually wouldn't care for history soo...
Russia: have fun with your piece of ice! This money was totally worth it
US: *digs a hole with a shovel and oil starts to rain from the hole* yay we are richer!!
Russia still in economic crisis: blyat.....
this makes me want a 38 part series on the statehood of all 50 states. 1 episode for the OG 13 and 1 for each succeeding state.
god that sounds dreadful, the individual states are so incredibly boring
2:33
I thought it was written 7 million plus tax cuz it would sound really American.
One of the reasons:
There were only 3000 Russians in Alaska.
And how many americans? And people overall?
@@imiy you'll have to look that up. From my memory it was like 3K or less Russians(including their offspring with Inuit) and like 40k Inuit. There weren't any Americans at the time of sale.
They should have just exiled all their troublemakers over there like a smart empire do. Win win. Too late now.
The population of Alaska before 1867 was around 4,000 people with only 500 of them being Russian. The rest where natives.
Russia: We want to sell Alaska.
USA: It's free real estate.
Russia: $7.2 million, actually.
America: *finds gold and oil*
Also America: who has to pay now, bitch?
Russia: Cyka Blyat
@@ladapeek2752
Atleast I'm old and mature enough to realise that it's a fucking joke, you dumbfuck.
1:39 the first time I heard of the British NOT wanting more....
Russia called, they want Alaska back
Never knew how close Imperial Russia was to Colonial India, almost neighbors.
Careful your sounding like Sara Palin
They called it The Great Game back in the day.
I believe that is the reason why Afghanistan has that tiny sliver of land sticking out. Britain gave that land to them so they wouldn’t be directly bordering the Russian Empire.
America to Alaska: "Hi, we're your new landlord. Where to you keep the gold?"
Alternate history is so interesting. Imagine if one key event, like the crimean war, had gone another way. Imagine the ramifications for the rest of human history. Crazy stuff.
True, interesting to think about
Yeah there was easily a way for Germany to win WWII because they were almost gonna invade Britain and maybe could have won but they started focusing London and cities.
@@styxscorpion4541 I'm no expert on the specifics on how Germany could have won however I don't blame them for bombing London and other major cities. If you want your enemy to surrender the best odds are to either A. Destroy enough property including industry and cause a huge spike in civilian loses and B. By targeting a well populated area most of the British high command would likely be station at London or some other major city giving the axis a chance to make whoever was left running scared.
@@OmegasTurn There was the unfortunate side effect that bombing London and other British cities sort of gave the RAF tacit permission to flatten Germany in return... so, big picture?
@@styxscorpion4541 There was literally no way Germany could have won against Britain. Look at D Day, where, the Allies had total and complete aerial and naval superiority against B grade German conscripts while they had successfully deceived the Axis into believing the invasion would be at Calais. The Allies almost lost on D Day, and it could have become one of the biggest Allied disasters of the Second World War.
Now look at Operation Sea Lion, where Germany has to attempt to land on Britain without any naval superiority (the Kriegsmarine was a pile of shit if you ignore U boats and the Bismarck (which was sunk in 1941 by WW1 era biplanes) and Tirpitz (sunk in 1943 by Lancasters)) while initiating an airborne operation in contested airspace. Not to mention, the vast majority of the British Army was still intact and ready to defend against an amphibious invasion. I'm certain if British High Command found out about Sea Lion they would have just let it happen.
The day James Bisonette stops supporting this channel is the day we realise somethings gone terribly wrong.
2:03
Like that ended well
Someone said to me that selling Alaska was the biggest mistake in Russian history
Akhem
Stalin
not really, they would lose it for nothing to their direct enemy at the time
@@tinkaraazb9383 yeah, right. Industrialization & WW2 win.
@@usun_current5786 4x as many pepol died to him as Hitler :/
@@tinkaraazb9383 nope, 1) total death toll during all decades of Gulag during Stalin times was less than Auschwitz alone in few years if you want to compare prison/camp complexes. 2) If you want to talk about starvation in central Russia and Ukraine - I would say it's the same as Irish famine in terms of considering or not it a genocide. 3) If just to go to the root of the difference: Germany did actual genocide (on industrial scale and methods) just based on ethnicity and to free up living space for Germans. USSR had the opposite issue - too few people for the vast territory fallen too far behind in competition. USSR did forced and quick industrialization and payed with millions of own citizens lives. USSR did sell crops/food to the West to get money for the initial industrialization while having wide spread famine at home. Killing people was not USSR purpose, it was a consequence of the methods taken. In contrast - killing people was one of the purposes for Germany. 4) Stalin is just a talking head. The whole communism was about full mobilization facing existential threat - they fulfilled their purpose and top talking head is irrelevant, they would have done the same with other random heads. 5) The real culprit are Russian tsarists who collapsed the Russian empire and failed to transform own country to compete using less radical measures.
Why did You sold Alaska?
Russia:Hello,I like money.
With a history full of blunders ,this one is near the top of the list
"Friends forver!"
Lenin: *SOON.*
Russia: We have enough snow and ice. We will sell you some for 10 million dollars
USA: We'll do it for 7 million. We only need it to chill our beer and make snow cones.
Russia: Peasants!
seeing pre-revolution Russian borders:
**silently swears in Finnish**
Finland has the ugliest people in Europe
@@levvy3006 Why?
@@levvy3006 that's not very nice to say
Suomi Suka
@@average-osrs-enjoyer And your comment is irrelevant, it's not supposed to be nice... It's supposed to be either true or false, you snowflake.
Lost the Crimean war, sale of Alaska, got absolutely slapped at battle of Tsushima, Russia was just an embarrassment going into the 20th century lol
Russia: hahaha, what a bunch of suckers!
Internal combustion engine: WE’RE HERE!
NOICE : ))))
Hold up?
America and Russia used to be friends?
Oh how times change.
faxist
ERIC CARTMAN CARTMAN In World War Two our relationship with the USSR was a “a enemy of my enemy is my friend” sort of deal.
The friendship ended after Bolsheviks seized power in Russia.
Yes. It was like: enemy of my enemy is my friend. Considered that USA's war for independence happened at that time not so long ago and Russia and Britain in 19th century were... Not friendly to each other
They were friends when Russia was weak.
You should do “Why Hungary joined the Axis”
He did this already, why anscluss
Search for it scrub xd
@@shadowling77777 it is Austria
Hugary -countryball because Hitler presented a yacht to Horty of course!
I read this as "Why Hungary joined The Asia" and thought "Probably got homesick"
@@shadowling77777 You look stupid now
Man The US is like those guys from antique shows who always find something special for the best bargain imaginable
Facts