On this day in history, Oct. 18, 1867, United States purchases Alaska from Russia for cool $7.2 million

The United States formally secured the acquisition of the vast Alaska territory from Russia on Oct. 18, 1867. The data is celebrated as Alaska Day and is a statewide holiday today.

"The purchase of Alaska in 1867 marked the end of Russian efforts to expand trade and settlements to the Pacific coast of North America, and became an important step in the United States rise as a great power in the Asia-Pacific region," writes the Office of the Historian of the United States Department of State.  "October 18 is celebrated each year in the Last Frontier as Alaska Day, an official state holiday." The land steal works out to a meager 1.7 cents per acre. "The press mocked [the] willingness to spend so much on ’Seward’s icebox' and Andrew Johnson's ‘polar bear garden.’"  Kerry J. Byrne is a lifestyle reporter with Fox News Digital.

After months of international negotiations and political wrangling in Washington, D.C., the deal was ceremoniously cemented with the lowering of the Russian flag on Castle Hill in Sitka and the raising of the American flag.