Video: 'Alaska: "Seward's Folly" - Decades TV Network'

(Saturday, March 30, 1867, 4:00 a.m. local time) — U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward reached agreement with Russia early today in Washington to purchase the territory of Alaska for $7.2 million ($125 million today), a deal ridiculed by critics as “Seward’s Folly.”

The U.S. would take formal possession of Alaska from Russia on Oct. 18, 1867.