Daily Quiz for October 6, 2008

Two cents. The per-acre purchase price for Alaska paid by the U.S. to Russia in 1867 was two cents. Through the negotiations of Secretary of State William H. Seward the purchase of the 591,000 square miles (more than 375 million acres) of Russian America territory cost $7.2 million. The treaty authorizing the purchase was ratified on April 9 and formal transfer took place on October 18, 1867. Alaska became a state in 1959.