2007-09-19 19:18:00 · 3 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ History
They explored it first. I think it was Vitus Bering working for the Russians. Hold on and I'll look him up. YUP. Vitus Bering was Danish but married a Russian woman and worked for Peter the Great in the early 1700s. Peter died in ~1725, but Bering continued to explore the "Bering Sea" area and discovered the coast of Alaska by the time of his death in 1741. This gave Russia the precedent to claim Alaska until the US bought it after the American Civil War.
2007-09-19 19:32:05 · answer #1 · answered by Spreedog 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Vitus Bering was employed by Peter the Great to explore the unknown lands of the Americas.Before Peter, Russia had a strong army but never had a strong navel force. Peter the Great studied sailing in his youth and wanted to make Russia a great navel empire. In fact he had the city of St. Petersburg built to be the new capital and a base for Russia's new navy.
Bering and his crew hauled everything they needed to build a ship across the interior of Russia, a distance twice as far as crossing the U.S. Once the got to Vladivostok on the Pacific coast, they still had to build their ship. Somehow they missed discovering any of the Aleutian Islands but did find the Alaskan coast around Sitka. They claimed the land for Russia and soon set up fur trapping towns.
2007-09-20 09:10:57 · answer #2 · answered by Michael G 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
They "discovered" it, explored the coast, and set up settlements to take advantage of the fur trade.
2007-09-20 02:26:46 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋