20th August: Alaska

On this date in 1741 Danish navigator Vitus Bering (for whom the Bering Sea is named) discovered Alaska on a voyage from Siberia. Bering died from scurvy and was buried on what is now Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. Alaska officially became the 49th state on January 3, 1959. Here are 10 things you may not know about Alaska:

1. Alaska is the largest state in the USA by area. It's twice the size of Texas, the next largest state; Rhode Island could fit into it 425 times, and it is larger than all but 18 of the world's sovereign countries. It has a longer coastline than all the other U.S. states combined. In all that space, there are relatively few people. Alaska is the 3rd least populous and the least densely populated of the 50 United States.
2. The US bought Alaska from Russia on March 30, 1867, for 7.2 million U.S. dollars at approximately two cents per acre. Then US Secretary of State William H. Seward brokered the deal, and was lampooned for it. Alaska was called "Seward's folly", "Seward's icebox" and "Walrussia" - but had he lived until 1888, he would have had the last laugh when Gold was discovered there. As well as gold, there is oil - 25% of the oil produced in the US. The Red Dog Zinc mine in northwest Alaska is the world’s largest zinc producer, and it is the only US state to have a platinum mine.
3. Nearly one-third of Alaska lies within the Arctic Circle, and it is just 50 or so miles from Russia.
4. The capital city is Juneau, the only state capital on mainland North America not to be connected to the rest of the highway system. The state's largest city is Anchorage; the second largest is Fairbanks. Fairbanks has a suburb called North Pole. It's nowhere near the North Pole but has turned itself into a Christmas themed tourist attraction. The city receives tons of letters meant for Santa Claus, and has streets with names like Snowman Lane and Kris Kringle Drive. Another well known city in Alaska is Nome. It got its name when a cartographer wrote on the map "? Name" for the as yet unnamed settlement. This was misread as "Nome" by the cartographer who reproduced the map.
5. The wild forget-me-not is the official state flower; the willow ptarmigan is the official state bird; the Sitka spruce is the official state tree; the four-spot skimmer dragonfly is the official state insect; dog mushing is the official state sport; gold is the official state mineral and jade is the official state gemstone. The state motto is North to the Future.
6. Alaska's wacky laws are mainly concerned with moose. It is illegal to whisper in someone’s ear while they are moose hunting in Alaska; it is an offence to push a live moose out of an aeroplane, or to view live moose from the air. In Fairbanks, it is an offence to give a moose an alcoholic beverage. While it is legal to shoot bears in Alaska, it is illegal to wake a sleeping bear to take a photograph of it.
7. Alaska is the only state name that you can type on one row of a keyboard.
8. Alaska boasts both the highest point (Mount Denali at 20,306 feet [6,189 m]), and the lowest point (the Aleutian Trench at 25,000 feet [7,620 m] below sea level) in North America. 17 of the 20 highest peaks in the United States are located in Alaska. It also has the US's largest national forest, Tongass National Forest covers almost the entire southeastern Alaska panhandle. There are more than 3,000 rivers and 3 million lakes in Alaska. Alaska’s largest lake, Lake Iliamna, is roughly the size of Connecticut. More than half the world’s glaciers can be found in Alaska, over a thousand of them. About 5 percent of Alaska is covered by glaciers. It was also the location of the worst Earthquake the US has ever seen on March 27, 1964. The  Good Friday Great Alaska Earthquake measured 9.2 on the Richter Scale - the second largest recorded by seismograph. It did $113 million in damage. Alaska also saw the only battle during World War II that to be fought on American soil in 1943 when the Japanese invaded the Aleutian Islands.
9. Because it is so far North, in deepest winter the Sun doesn't rise for weeks and in summer it doesn't set. Aurora borealis (northern lights) can be seen an average of 243 days a year in Fairbanks. Many hotels in Alaska offer Northern Lights wake-up calls upon request. In summer, the long days lead to giant vegetables. For example, Alaska has grown a record Cabbage weighing 94 pounds.
10. Until 2009, the small town of Talkeetna, Alaska hosted an annual Moose Dropping Festival. Varnished pieces of numbered moose droppings were dumped from a crane into a car park. The "owner" of the dropping which landed closest to the centre of a target would win a cash prize. The event eventually grew too dangerously large and was discontinued.