THE GARRISON ITSELF, meanwhile, was in chaos. When the attack began, only about 750 soldiers were in the fort; most of the others were on leave or quartered in nearby villages. The besieged soldiers tumbled into the fort from the roof and told of planes with no engines appearing silently out of the night sky.
When did Alaska become a state? Alaska was formally recognized by the U.S. as one of its states on the third day of January in 1959. To know more about the history of the place, it is best to look at the important events that happened in the state from the 1700s to the 1900s.
Alaska was granted statehood on January 3, 1959. In 1964, the massive  Good Friday earthquake  killed 131 people and leveled several villages. The 1968 discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay and the 1977 completion of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline led to an oil boom. In 1989, the Exxon Valdez hit a reef in Prince William Sound, spilling between 11 and 34 million US gallons (42,000 and 130,000 mÂ³) of crude oil over 1,100 miles (1,600 km) of coastline.