Alaska Timeline
740 AD A volcano erupted near the head of the white river. It forced all animal and human life to leave the region for many years.
1648 The first white people arrived in the Alaskan Region. They found three groups of people living there: Inuit, Aleuts, and Indians.
1728 Vitus Bering, a Danish navigator, was commissioned by Peter the Great to explore the North Pacific Region. He sailed across the straight between Russia and North America. The straight was named after him, the Bering Strait.
1741 Bering and Aleksei Chirikov led another expedition to the region. They landed at Kayak Island.
1774 Juan Perez discovered Forrester Island. The Spanish thought the Russian fur traders were intruders on their land.
1778 Captain James Cook explored Prince William Sound.
1784 The first white settlement was established in Alaska by Gregory Shelikof. He called it Russian America. It was on Kodiak Island.
1799 Alexander Baranof became the manager of the Russian-American Company. It was a trading firm chartered by the Russians. He moved the headquarters of the firm to Novo Arkhangelsk. It became the largest town in Russian-America.
1818 Baranof retired. Russian naval commanders began to rule the colony.
1824 Russia signed a treaty with the United States recognizing the southern boundary of the territory and giving trading rights along Alaska's Pacific Coast.
1825 Russia signed an agreement with the United Kingdom similar to the United States Treaty.
1848 A huge population of bowhead and other whales are found off the coast of Alaska. Many whale hunters headed to the region.
1850s The fur trading industry had declined. The Russian-American Company began to fail.
1853-1856 Russia fought in the Crimean War.
30 March 1867 William H. Seward, United States Secretary of State, agreed to buy the Alaska Region from Russia for $7,200,000. Seward Signed the Treaty of Cession of Russian America to the United States.
18 October 1867 The First American Flag was raised at Sitka after Congress approved the treaty.
1878 The first fish canneries were built in Alaska.
1880 Gold was discovered by Joseph Juneau and Richard T. Harris along Gastineau Channel.
1880 The first American Census was conducted in Alaska.
1882 The first tourist cruises to Alaska were offered.
1884 The Organic Act was passed in Congress. The act provided for a governor, a code of laws, and a federal court in Alaska.
1896 Gold was found in the Klondike.
1897-1898 The Alaska gold rush took place.
1898 Gold was found in Nome.
1902 Gold was found in Fairbanks.
1903 Congress created a Board of Road Commissioners for Alaska. They built and maintained wagon roads, trails, bridges, and ferries throughout the territory.
1906 Alaskans were allowed to elect their own delegate to Congress. Frank H. Waskey was elected as their representative. He could speak in the House of Representatives, but he could not vote.
1908 James W. Wickersham was elected as representative.
1910 The hunting of sea otter was banned.
1912 The Second Organic Act was passed. It allowed Alaska to form a territorial legislature.
1913 The Alaska Native Brotherhood (ANB) was formed. It helped to unite native communities.
1913 Women were given the right to vote.
1915 The Alaska Native Sisterhood was formed.
1916 The first Alaskan statehood bill was sent to Congress. They did not hear it.
1917 Mt. McKinley National Park was established.
1929 The ANB asked Wickersham to help them pursue a settlement for the native land that was taken by the federal government.
1942 Dutch Harbor was bombed by the Japanese. The Japanese also occupied Kiska and Attu islands during World War II.
1942 The Alaska Highway was built. It was mainly a military supply road.
1943 152,000 military personnel were stationed in Alaska.
1943 The United States military recovered Kiska and Attu.
1958 Congress voted to admit Alaska as a state.
3 January 1959 President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the proclamation, which made Alaska the 49th state.
1964 An earthquake measuring 8.3 on the Richter scale hit the area around Anchorage.
1966 The Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) was formed. Representatives from every tribe met to insure the rights of the natives.
1968 Oil was discovered on the Arctic Coastal Plain.
1969 Alaska auctioned oil and gas leases earning over $900 million.
1971 The Alaska native Claims Settlement Act was passed. It gave a settlement to the natives for the land that the federal government had taken.
1974 Construction of a pipeline to carry oil across the state began.
1976 The Alaska Permanent Fund was made a part of the state constitution.
1977 The pipeline was completed.
1978 56 million acres of Alaskan land were set aside as national monuments.
1980 Individual state income taxes were abolished as a result of high revenues from the oil boom.
1980 The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act was passed.
1982 Every Alaska resident of six months or more began receiving annual payments from the Alaska Permanent Fund.
1989 The Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker, hit the reef in Prince William Sound. It caused the largest oil spill in the history of the United States.
1992 The clean-up of the oil spill was finished.
13 June 1994 A jury in Anchorage, Alaska blamed recklessness by Exxon Corp. and Capt. Joseph Hazelwood for the Exxon Valdez disaster, allowing victims of the nation's worst oil spill to seek $15 billion in damages.
1998 The Alaska Sea Life Center opened. It was paid for by the money from the settlement in the Exxon Valdez case.
Works Cited
Naske, Claus-M. "Alaska." Worldbookonline.com.
Ratnikas, Algis. Today in History. Online. http://timelines.ws/TODAY.HTML.
"Yukon and Alaska History." Explore North. http://www.explorenorth.com/index.html.