Alaska is wild, enormous, and a place that fascinates many people. The state captures the imagination and many dream of Alaska for years before ever arriving on its shore. This stunningly beautiful land has a lot of great things in abundance. Here are some facts that you may not know about the great land.
1. Alaska has more bald eagles than all the other states combined.
7. The coldest temperature ever officially recorded in the US was -79.8°F at Prospect Creek Camp in the Endicott Mountains of northern Alaska on Jan. 23, 1971. Brrr...
8. The northernmost town in the U.S. is Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow) and it has the longest night of anywhere in the U.S. There is no daylight for 64 days in Barrow straddling the winter solstice on Dec. 21.
10. In the winter of 1952–1953, 974.1 inches of snow fell on Thompson Pass near Valdez, the most ever recorded in one season in Alaska, and the U.S. at the time.
The check reads: With this check, the United States completed the purchase of almost 600,000 square miles of land from the Russian Government. This treasury warrant issued on August 1, 1868, at the Sub-Treasury Building at 26 Wal, New York, New York, transferred $7.2 million to Russian Minister to the United States Edouard de Stoeckl.
12. Juneau is the only capital of a U.S. state that can only be accessed by air or sea.
19. The 1964 Good Friday Earthquake was the largest recorded earthquake in North America at magnitude 9.2. Of the ten strongest earthquakes ever recorded in the world, three have occurred in Alaska.
20. Alaska has the highest number of pilots per capita of any U.S. state: out of the estimated 663,661 residents, 8,550 are pilots, or about one in every 78.
