History of Alaska

1867 map from U. S. Coast Survey Office

1725 - During the First Kamchatka Expedition (1725-30), Vitus Bering and his assistant, Aleksei Chirikov, sailed north along the coast of Kamchatka, and in August 1728 passed between the two continents.

1741 - During the Second Kamchatka Expedition (1733-41), Bering and Chirikov landed at several places along the Aleutian Islands and the coast of the North American mainland between June and September 1741. (map)

1745 - Mikhail Nevodchikov reached Attu in the western Aleutians on September 25, and was the first of the Russian fur hunters to sail to Alaska.

1776 - James Cook's third voyage 1776-79 mapped the North Pacific, including the Alaskan coast.

1784 - Siberian fur merchants Grigorii Shelikhov and Ivan Golikov founded the first year-round permanent Russian settlement on Kodiak Island.

1787 - Spanish claims reached as far north as Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island. Barnabe Munoz sketched the coast of what is now Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and southeastern Alaska from the 44th to the 61st parallels.

1789 - The Nootka crisis of 1789 almost brought Spain and Britain to war but was resolved with the Convention of 1790.

1799 - The Russian-American Company was chartered in St. Petersburg to conduct the sea otter fur trade in Alaska under general manager Alexander Baranov.

1801 - Baaranov made an agreement with John Jacob Astor to allow the establishment of an American outpost on the Columbia River called Astoria that sold supplies to Russian-American Company.

1804 - The capital of Russian America was New Archangel on Sitka Island.


1806 - Nikolai Rezanov was the first Russian to deal with the Spanish along the Pacific coast and to sail into San Francisco Bay in April.

1812 - Ivan Kuskov established Fort Ross 18 miles north of Bodega Bay for the Russian-American Company, until it was sold to John Sutter in 1841.

1852 - Sen. William Gwin proposal to survey the Bering Strait and to purchase Alaska from Russia

1866 - Czar Alexander decided Dec. 16 to sell Alaska for $5m, and American friendship vs. British


1867 - Stoeckl and Seward signed the offcial sale treaty at 4 am March 30, ratified by Senate Apr. 9, formal transfer ceremony took place at Sitka on Oct. 18.

1868 - House voted July 14 to pass the appropriation bill 113-42 that authorized payment on Aug. 1 of $7,035,000

1881 - Barrow, the northernmost Alaskan town, was founded after the U.S. Army established a meteorological and magnetic research station in 1881 and the Cape Smythe Whaling and Trading Station was built in 1893.

1888 - Gold was discovered at Crow Creek near Girdwood, the first of several Alaskan gold rushes.

1896 - Gold was discovered in the Klondike.

1901 - E.T. Barnette founded a trading post near the Tanana Valley gold mines that became the city of Fairbanks , named in honor of the Indiana Senator Charles W. Fairbanks soon to be the Vice President.

1907 - Theodore Roosevelt created the Tongass National Forest, largest of the national forests.

1912 - Alaska became an American territory. The first act of the legislature in 1913 was to grant women the right to vote.

1914 - Anchorage founded as the construction camp for the Alaska Railroad, as surveys began for the route from the port of Seward to the new city that was officially named in 1915 and would be the headquarters of the railroad. The northern half of the route from Anchorage to Nernana was completed in 1923 with a golden spike driven by President Warren Harding.

1923 -After oil seeps were found on the North Slope in 1917 by the U.S. Geological Survey, 23 million acres were set aside in 1923 as Naval Petroleum Reserve Number 4 for the U.S. Navy converting from coal to oil.

1929 - U. S. Navy began 5-year survey to map Alaska.

1940 - Military construction at Anchorage established Fort Richardson and Elmendorf Air Force Base.

1942 - Japan invaded the Aleutians in WWII

1957 - The Eisenhower Administration opened 20 million acres of the North Slope east of the Naval Petroleum Reserve for commercial oil and gas leasing.

1959 - On January 3, Alaska became the 49th state.

1960 - The federal government set aside 8.9 million acres in northeast Alaska as the Arctic National Wildlife Range, renamed in 1980 the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

1964 - The Good Friday earthquake that shook Anchorage with three-foot high ground waves for five minutes on March 27 registered 8.6, the most powerful in North American history.

1968 - Oil was discovered at Prudhoe Bay by Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) and Humble Oil (now Exxon), and the oil companies with BP planned to build the Trans-Alaska Pipeline 800 miles from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, Alaska, approved by Congress 1973 during the OPEC oil embargo with the tie-breaking vote cast by VP Spiro Agnew, constructed for $8 billion 1974-1977.

1971 - Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act passed.

1980 - Congress passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act that doubled the size of the Arctic National Wildlife Range, now named Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, with most of it desgnated as wilderness except Section 1002 on the north coast around the Kaktovik Inupiat Corporation (KIC).

1989 - On March 24 the Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound, covered 1300 miles of coastline with tar, killed billions of fish, and 250,000 birds.

1991 - Congress closed the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

2002 - Construction began on an anti-missile defense system at Fort Greely southeast of Faribanks near Delta Junction on the Alaskan Pipeline and near the Denali Fault where a 7.9 earthquake occurred in November.

2005 - A Democratic filibuster in the Senate Dec. 21 blocked an attempt by Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

Alaska 1972
Alaska 2002 from UT - bg
Alaska 2004 from AIS - bg

Links:

Sources:

revised 1/1/06 by Schoenherr at the University of San Diego