Inhabited by the indigenous population for thousands of years, and in a time erstwhile the Bering Strait could be passed by a dry foot, the entry point for the first human (and animal) migrations!. As the first Alaska colonization began in the 18th century, the Russian Empire, but the cost of maintaining the distant from the European heart of the Empire area prompted the Russians to sale Alaska to the Americans. So in 1867, for a price of $7.2 million, Alaska was placed under the Washington administration. The name, introduced in the Russian colonial period, comes from the Aleutian deposit alaxsxaq marking fixed land. In 1959, it was adopted into the Union as the 49th U.S. state.
