Britannica On This Day October 18 2023

This Day in History: October 18

Featured Event

1867







Alaska Purchase approved
After much opposition, a deal negotiated by U.S. Secretary of State William Seward for the U.S. purchase of the Russian colony of Alaska was approved, and on this day in 1867 the U.S. flag was flown over the capital, Sitka.


Alaska
state, United States







Alaska, constituent state of the United States of America. It was admitted to the union as the 49th state on January 3, 1959. Alaska lies at the extreme northwest of the North American continent, and the Alaska Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the Western Hemisphere. Because the 180th meridian passes through the state’s Aleutian Islands, Alaska’s westernmost portion is in the Eastern Hemisphere. Thus, technically, Alaska is in both hemispheres. Alaska is bounded by the Beaufort Sea and the Arctic Ocean to the north, Canada’s Yukon territory and British Columbia province to the east, the Gulf of Alaska and ...(100 of 8617 words)


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Featured Biography

Lindsey Vonn
American skier




October 18, 1984 -
Lindsey Vonn, American Alpine skier who won four women’s World Cup overall championships (2008–10 and 2012) and was the first woman to win 82 World Cup races. She also claimed three Olympic Winter Games...


Lindsey Vonn, née Lindsey Kildow, (born October 18, 1984, St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S.), American Alpine skier who won four women’s World Cup overall championships (2008–10 and 2012) and was the first woman to win 82 World Cup races. She also claimed three Olympic Winter Games medals and eight world championships medals during her international racing career.
Kildow burst onto the international skiing scene in 1999 at age 14 when she won the slalom race at Italy’s Trofeo Topolino competition for skiers aged 11–14, becoming the first American female to capture the event. She skied in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, racing in Alpine combined and slalom, but she managed only a sixth-place finish in combined. She won a silver medal in downhill at the 2003 Fédération Internationale de Ski (FIS) junior world ski championships and again took silver in downhill one year later at the U.S. championships.


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