Alaska becomes the 49th state 1958

In 1867 the USA bought Alaska from Russia, and paid $7,200,000.00 for it. Alaska cost only 2 cents an acre! In 1958 Alaska was made the 49th state of the United States of America. President Dwight Eisenhower signed the official admission documents. The USA probably bought Alaska for it's oil industries, and it accounts for 25% of the USA's oil production.

A helicopter picked up President Eisenhower from his farm in Pennsylvania to the White House to do the ceremony that welcomed Alaska into the USA. President Eisenhower said that he was "very highly privileged and honored" to welcome Alaska into the USA. He also said that it had been nearly 50 years since the last state, Arizona, was welcomed into the USA.

The Alaskans voted to be a state in 1956, but it took more than 2 years for the senate to finally agree to make Alaska a state. After they did make Alaska a state, President Eisenhower signed a paper that created a new flag with 49 stars. It was scheduled to come out on July 4, 1959. However, it didn't come out. On March 18, 1959, he signed a paper saying that Hawaii was the 50th state.

Amazingly enough, Alaska's state flag was designed by a 13 year old kid! It is a picture of the big dipper with a star in one corner. Alaska also has an official state fossil, the Woolly Mammoth. In the last 300 years, at least 41 different
volcanoes have erupted in Alaska.

Alaska also has the northernmost point in the USA (Point Barrow), it also has both the easternmost (Semisopochnoi Island in the Aleutian Islands) and the westernmost (Little Diomede Island)!! How? Because Alaska crosses the
international dateline. As well as having those, it also has seventeen of the twenty highest peaks in the USA, including the highest - Mt. McKinley, which is 20,320
feet above sea level!

By Maureen D'Souza - Anjo

sources:

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