On October 18, 1867, the U.S. formally took possession of
Alaska after purchasing the territory from Russia for $7.2
million, or less than two cents an acre. Indigenous peoples
settled the unforgiving territory thousands of years earlier.

The Alaska purchase comprised 586,412 square miles, about
twice the size of Texas, and was championed by William
Henry Seward, the enthusiastically expansionist secretary
of state under President Andrew Johnson.

Russia wanted to sell its Alaska territory, which was remote
and difficult to defend, to the U.S. rather than risk losing it
in battle with a rival such as Great Britain.

Treasury warrant in the amount of $7.2 million for the
purchase of Alaska. (Department of the Treasury;
National Archives)

                 (May 16, 1801 – October 10, 1872)

With the words, “Hello! This is New York calling,” the U.S. Voice
of America (VOA) began its first radio broadcasts to the Soviet
Union. The VOA effort was an important part of America’s
propaganda campaign against the Soviet Union during the
Cold War.

The VOA began in 1942 as a radio program designed to
explain America’s policies during World War II and to
bolster the morale of its allies throughout Europe, Asia,
the Middle East, and Africa.

After the war, VOA continued as part of America’s Cold War
propaganda arsenal and was primarily directed toward the
western European audience.

Boris Pasternak’s romantic novel, Doctor Zhivago is published
in the United States on September 5, 1958. The book was banned
in the Soviet Union, but still won the Nobel Prize for Literature in
1958.

Boris Leonidovich Pasternak
(29 January] 1890 – 30 May 1960)

The wreckage of Francis Gary Powers’ U-2 spy plane
(top/bottom) on May 1, 1960.

An American U-2 spy plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers was
shot down while conducting espionage over the Soviet Union.

The incident derailed an important summit meeting between
President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet leader Nikita
Khrushchev that was scheduled for later that month.   
     

After being shot down, Powers (right) appeared in the dock
of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R. and was tried by the
Soviet Military Board on August 19, 1960.

Francis Gary Powers holds a model of a U-2 spy plane as he testifies before the U.S.  Senate Armed Services Committee
after his release from Soviet prison in march 1962.

Francis Gary Powers (August 17, 1929 – August 1, 1977)

Powers was piloting a helicopter for Los Angeles TV station
KNBC Channel 4 over the San Fernando Valley on August 1,
1977, when the aircraft crashed, killing him and his cameraman
George Spears.

Czar Alexander II, the ruler of Russia since 1855, was killed in the
streets of St. Petersburg by a bomb thrown by a member of the revolutionary “People’s Will” group. The People’s Will, organized
in 1879, employed terrorism and assassination in their attempt to overthrow Russia’s czarist autocracy. They murdered officials
and made several attempts on the czar’s life before finally
assassinating him on March 13, 1881.