What is "alaska"

name first applied 18c. by Russian explorers, from Aleut alaxsxaq, literally "the object toward which the action of the sea is directed" [Bright]. Baked Alaska attested by 1896, so called either for its whiteness or from being cold inside.

n. The 49th state of the United States of America. Postal code: AK, capital: Juneau, largest city: Anchorage.

Alaska is a U.S. state situated in the northwest extremity of the Americas. The Canadian administrative divisions of British Columbia and Yukon border the state to the east; it has a maritime border with Russia to the west across the Bering Strait. To the north are the Chukchi and Beaufort seas–the southern parts of the Arctic Ocean. The Pacific Ocean lies to the south and southwest. Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area, the 3rd least populous and the least densely populated of the 50 United States. Approximately half of Alaska's residents (the total estimated at 738,432 by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2015) live within the Anchorage metropolitan area. Alaska's economy is dominated by the fishing, natural gas, and oil industries, resources which it has in abundance. Military bases and tourism are also a significant part of the economy.

The United States purchased Alaska from the Russian Empire on March 30, 1867, for 7.2 million U.S. dollars at approximately two cents per acre ($4.74/km). The actual transfer of sovereignty took place on the 6th October 1867 (Julian calendar), which was equivalent to the 18th October in the Gregorian one. To complicate matters further, the time zone changed from 14 hours ahead of Greenwich to 10 hours behind, which meant that Alaska had two Fridays in succession, the only place to have ever done so. The area went through several administrative changes before becoming organized as a territory on May 11, 1912. It was admitted as the 49th state of the U.S. on January 3, 1959.

Alaska is a historical novel by James A. Michener, published in 1988. Like other Michener titles, Alaska spans a considerable amount of time.

Alaska is a state of the United States of America. Alaska may also refer to:

Alaska (born Maria Olvido Gara Jova, June 13, 1963 in Mexico City) is a Spanish-Mexican singer, DJ, and TV personality famous in Spain and Latin America. She was one of the main characters in the La Movida Madrileña, the cultural and artistic movement that followed the end of the Franco dictatorship in Spain. This movement in which music, arts, cinema and fashion erupted and collided to confirm the actual society Spain had become under Franco. She has participated since the late 1970s in several groups of different success: Kaka de Luxe 1977, Alaska y los Pegamoides 1980, Alaska y Dinarama 1983, and since 1989, the Spanish electropop band, Fangoria. Today, Alaska continues to perform and has become an icon of 1980s Spain.

Alaska is a 1996 action-adventure film that centers on two children who search through the Alaskan wilderness for their lost father. During their journey they find a polar bear that helps lead them to their father. However, a poacher with a desire to capture the bear follows close behind the kids and the polar bear. The movie was filmed primarily in the Purcell Mountains of British Columbia in Canada and the city of Vancouver. The film was not a success, grossing only $11,829,959 over a $24,000,000 budget. It received negative reviews upon its release.

Alaska is the third studio album by progressive metal band Between the Buried and Me. It was released on September 6, 2005 through Victory Records and is the first album to feature Dustie Waring on guitar, Dan Briggs on bass, and Blake Richardson on drums.

While Alaska did not sell as well as its predecessor The Silent Circus upon release, it still achieved high critical reviews and it includes some of the band’s most notable songs, such as its title track and "Selkies: The Endless Obsession". Another version of Alaska was released featuring instrumental versions of most of the songs (excluding tracks 3, 6, and 7). A music video was released for the song "Alaska".

'Alaska ' is a periodical devoted to news and discussion of issues and features of and from Alaska. Most of its readership consists of persons outside of Alaska who are interested in the Alaskan way of life.

Alaska is a solitaire game using one deck of playing cards, and is quite similar to the game "Yukon". It is said to be more difficult than "Yukon" due to the difference in Tableau building. The object of the game is to move all cards to the Foundations.

Alaska is a 1944 American crime adventure film directed by George Archainbaud. It stars Kent Taylor, Margaret Lindsay, and John Carradine.

Alaska is a 2015 drama film written and directed by Claudio Cupellini and starring Elio Germano and Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey. It entered the competition at the Rome Film Festival.

Alaska, lýsing á landi og lands-kostum, ásamt skýrslu innar íslenzku sendinefndar : um stofnun íslenzkrar nýlendu is a pamphlet by Jón Ólafsson detailing Alaska and the possibility of founding an Icelandic colony there. Included in the pamphlet is the report of the Icelandic delegation. It was published in 1875 in Washington and re-published on February 26, 2005 by Project Gutenberg.

The report has high hopes and dreams of a future world where Icelandic will surpass English in the world following the founding of the colony and years of rapidly populating it. The report includes a calculation where 10 thousand Icelanders would form the colony and then double their numbers every 25 years, so that in three to four centuries they would number 100 million, covering the area from Hudson Bay to the Pacific Ocean. From there Icelandic could spread south, replacing the degenerate English tongue, as it is put.

The author's disdain for English is more evident as he describes it as "being a prostitute who has laid with every language of savages and idiots". The nature and weather of Alaska is detailed for the benefit of future settlers.

Although the proposal for colonization of Alaska never materialized, the report was cited in Alaskan government reports as late as 1904.

Alaska, the fourth album by the Silver Seas, was released in the summer of 2013. Frontman Daniel Tashian described it as the band's "country" record, explaining in a press release that they "tried to play well, crisply, economically, like country musicians. There is plenty of [producer Joe Pisapia's] steel guitar. The songs are about distance. Distance between places, weather, people, ideas. It's about somewhere you would never stumble on; you have to deliberately go to Alaska. I've never been there, I don't know if I will ever go, but I have a beautiful idea of what it's like." He added, "They say it takes an outsider to describe a place accurately; Joe's from New Jersey and I was born in Connecticut. Sometimes I see my friends go from relationship to relationship, looking for this place they see in their minds, but reality always falls short somehow ... Sometimes it's best to leave certain things to the imagination."