On this day in Jan 3, 1959: President Eisenhower signed the territory of Alaska into the Union as the 49th and largest state.  On March 30, 1867, Secretary of State William H. Seward signed a treaty with Russia to purchase Alaska for $7.2 million at the price of about two cents an acre, the purchase was ridiculed as &#34;Seward&#39;s folly,&#34; &#34;Seward&#39;s icebox,&#34; and President Andrew Johnson&#39;s &#34;polar bear garden.&#34; But the Senate ratified purchase of the land, one-fifth the size of the rest of the country.