The Cold War, as the ideological conflict between the West and East was known, lasted 4 decades. It started shortly after World War II and went on until the end of the USSR in December 1991.
Wonder how different things would have been had Alaska been another Soviet republic?
On this day in 1867, Secretary of State Seward signed a treaty with Russia and purchased Alaska for $7 million.
It was actually a huge bargain but that’s not what they thought back then.
So they called it “Seward’s Folly” or ““Seward’s icebox.”
The critics were tough on President Andrew Johnson, too. They called it his “polar bear garden.”
Less than a 100 years later, or 1959, Alaska became a state and nobody is calling the purchase a folly anymore.
Can you imagine Soviet missiles pointing at the US from north in Alaska? Or more oil fields in the hands of Putin today?
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