Russia sold Alaska for peanuts. Now it guards America against Moscow

Neither side could have foreseen how dramatically Alaska’s economic and military importance would grow. Look at a map of the world and Alaska seems out of place. It belongs to the United States, yet sits apart from the rest of the country, separated by Canada and facing Russia across the narrow Bering Strait. How did this vast territory become a part of America? In 1867, the Russian Empire sold Alaska to the United States for $7.2 million in gold. Covering nearly 600,000 square miles, the territory cost the Americans less than two cents an acre. In hindsight, it looks like…