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Satellite image of Bering Strait. Cape Dezhnev, Russia, is on the left, the two Diomede Islands are in the middle, and Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, is on the right. The Bering Strait is about 82 kilometers (51 mi) wide at its narrowest point, between Cape Dezhnev, Chukchi Peninsula, Russia, the easternmost point (169° 39' W) of the Asian continent and Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, United ...
In addition, Russia was in a difficult financial position and feared losing Russian Alaska without compensation in some future conflict, especially to the British. The Russians believed that in a dispute with Britain, their hard-to-defend region might become a prime target for British aggression from British Columbia , and would be easily captured.
In 1904, a syndicate of American railroad magnates proposed (through a French spokesman) a Siberian–Alaskan railroad from Cape Prince of Wales in Alaska through a tunnel under the Bering Strait and across northeastern Siberia to Irkutsk via Cape Dezhnev, Verkhnekolymsk, and Yakutsk (around 5,000 km [3,100 mi] of railroad to build, plus over 3,000 km [1,900 mi] in North America).
The text of the 1867 treaty between the United States and Russia which finalized the Alaska Purchase uses the islands to designate the boundary between the two nations: the border separates "equidistantly Krusenstern Island, or Ignaluk, from Ratmanov Island, or Nunarbuk, and heads northward infinitely until it disappears completely in the ...
Alaska's territorial waters touch Russia's territorial waters in the Bering Strait, as the Russian Big Diomede Island and Alaskan Little Diomede Island are only 3 miles (4.8 km) apart. Alaska has a longer coastline than all the other U.S. states combined. [40] Alaska's size compared with the 48 contiguous states (Albers equal-area conic projection)
The route was developed in 1942 for several reasons. Initially, the 7th Ferrying Group, Ferrying Command, United States Army Air Corps (later Air Transport Command) at Gore Field (Great Falls Municipal Airport) was ordered to organize and develop an air route to send assistance to the Soviet Union through Northern Canada, across Alaska and the Bering Sea to Siberia, and eventually over to the ...
The achievements of the expedition included the European discovery of Alaska, the Aleutian Islands, the Commander Islands, Bering Island, as well as a detailed cartographic assessment of the northern and north-eastern coast of Russia and the Kuril Islands. It definitively refuted the legend of a land mass in the north Pacific, and did ...
The U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867. In the 1890s, gold rushes in Alaska and the nearby Yukon Territory brought thousands of miners and settlers to Alaska. Alaska was granted territorial status in 1912 by the United States of America.