How did the US aquire Hawaii & Alaska as States?

Question

Did the US have to buy them, bribe them, blackmail them or what? I can't imagine the US could just sail into Hawaii and/or Alaska and say "Hi! We are claiming your country"
How did it happen?

Answer 1

Alaska with cold hard cash
Hawaii They voted to become a state
In 1959 Hawaii's plebiscite vote was held, and again, the United States government bent the rules. The plebiscite ballot only had the choice between statehood and remaining a territory. No option for independence appeared on the ballot as was required under the UN charter. Cheated out of their independence yet again, Hawaiians voted for the lesser of two evils and became the 50th state

Answer 2

Hawaii was invaded. The so called "vote" excluded most of the citizens who actually owned the land via being a citizen of the Hawaiian kingdom.

The vote also happened a long time after the overthrow and imprisonment of the monarch.

Answer 3

Alaska was bought from Russia for about two cents an acre.

Hawaii was basicly taken over by the pineapple and sugarcane farmers with the help of the missionaries. They pretty much toppled the monarchy.

Answer 4

American businessmen saw an opportunity to get rich!

The overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893 by a small group of businessmen is arguably the most pivotal moment in Hawai'i's history.

The loss of sovereignty and the ruling authority of Queen Lili'uokalani is still keenly felt by Native Hawaiians more than 100 years later.

In 1887, a secretive group that called itself the Hawaiian League vowed to create "decent and honest government in Hawai'i."

Its members, all businessmen and planters with U.S. or missionary ties, pledged their lives, property and "sacred honor" toward this goal. They memorized a constitution written by their leader, Lorrin Thurston, then destroyed the written version. They also swore to keep their organization a secret.

Many league members belonged to the Honolulu Rifles, a volunteer militia for the kingdom that was run by the league.

The league, whose ranks grew to roughly 400 people, was instrumental in forcing King Kalakaua to sign the "Bayonet Constitution," which stripped the monarchy of all meaningful power in 1877.

By 1892, Thurston had formed his core supporters into the Annexation Club, which plotted the overthrow of Lili'uokalani.

When the queen proposed a new constitution in January 1893, the annexationists saw an opportunity. With a nod to the French Revolution, they renamed themselves the Committee of Safety and persuaded U.S. diplomat John Stevens to land American troops on Jan. 16, 1893.

"She wants us to sleep on a slumbering volcano which will one morning spew out blood and destroy us all," Thurston told supporters who had gathered at the Honolulu armory that day.

That afternoon, four boatloads of Marines and bluejackets — 162 in all — came ashore from the USS Boston, docked in Honolulu Harbor, and marched through the streets and past the queen's palace. They brought Gatling guns and 14,000 rounds of ammunition, cannons and a hospital unit.

Lili'uokalani was convinced that resistance would cost many lives. At dusk the next day, Jan. 17, 1893, she surrendered under protest to the new provisional government.

In her surrender statement, Lili'uokalani yielded under the belief that the U.S. government would hear the circumstances of the overthrow and reinstate her authority "as the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands."

It would never happen. Five years later, Thurston and his supporters secured annexation, and Hawai'i became U.S. territory.

Answer 5

1959 - i stay in alaska, and that i think in a pair years we are able to be having our 50 12 months anni! wooo hoo! there are gonna be lots of events.... it is merely what alaska is like. lol.

Answer 6

Hawaii petitioned for statehood.Alaska was purchased.

Answer 7

what ever they did , I wish they would do it to Mexico. We need to own it, since we own all their people