360What happened in 1867?
4 moments from 1867 on 360n60, each told in 60 words or fewer.
- On this day · 30 March 1867
The United States agrees to buy Alaska
On 30 March 1867, the United States agreed to buy Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million, about two cents an acre. Critics called it 'Seward's Folly', after the Secretary of State who arranged it. Gold, fish and later oil proved its value. Alaska became a US state in 1959.
- On this day · 1 July 1867
Canada becomes a self-governing dominion
On 1 July 1867, the British North America Act came into force, uniting the colonies of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick into a new self-governing country, the Dominion of Canada. Other provinces joined later. Canadians celebrate the date every year as Canada Day.
- On this day · 7 November 1867
Marie Curie is born
Marie Skłodowska Curie was born in Warsaw on 7 November 1867. She moved to Paris to study science and, with her husband Pierre, discovered polonium and radium. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and remains the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences.
- 1867 · from The 1860s: the underground, dynamite and the periodic table
Nobel patents dynamite