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Katherine Johnson’s mathematical calculations helped guide some of America’s most important early space missions while she confronted the racial and gender barriers faced by Black women in twentieth-century America.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
The Russian-American Company Under the High Patronage of His Imperial Majesty was a Russian state-sponsored chartered company formed largely on the basis of the United American Company. Emperor Paul I of Russia chartered the company in the Ukase of 1799. It had the mission of establishing new settlements in Russian America, conducting trade with natives, and carrying out an expanded colonization program. Russia's first joint-stock company, it came under the direct authority of the Ministry of Commerce of Imperial Russia. Count Nikolai Petrovich Rumyantsev (Minister of Commerce from 1802 to 1811; Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1808 to 1814) exercised a pivotal influence upon the early activities of the company. In 1801 the company's headquarters moved from Irkutsk to Saint Petersburg, and the merchants who were initially the major stockholders were soon replaced with Russia's nobility and aristocracy. Count Rumyantsev funded Russia's first naval circumnavigation of the globe under the joint command of Adam Johann von Krusenstern and Nikolai Rezanov in 1803–1806. Later he funded and directed the Ryurik's circumnavigation of 1814–1816, which provided substantial scientific information on Alaska's and California's flora and fauna, and important ethnographic information on Alaskan and Californian (among others) natives. During the Russian-California period (1812–1842) when they operated Fort Ross, the Russians named present-day Bodega Bay, California as "Rumyantsev Bay" (Залив Румянцев) in his honor.
The Russian–American Telegraph, also known as the Western Union Telegraph Expedition and the Collins Overland Telegraph, was an attempt by the Western Union Telegraph Company from 1865 to 1867 to lay a telegraph line from San Francisco, California, to Moscow, Russia. The route of the $3,000,000 undertaking (equivalent to $63.1 million today) was intended to travel from California via Oregon, Washington Territory, the Colony of British Columbia and Russian America, under the Bering Sea and cross the broad breadth of the Eurasian Continent to Moscow, where lines would communicate with the rest of Europe. It was proposed as a much longer alternative to the challenge of long, deep underwater cables in the Atlantic, having only to cross the comparatively narrow Bering Strait underwater between North America and Siberia. Laying the cable across Siberia proved more difficult than expected. Meanwhile, Cyrus West Field's transatlantic cable was successfully completed, leading to the abandonment in 1867 of the trans-Russian effort. A Government of Canada historic plaque adds these specifics: "In 1867 ... construction ceased at Fort Stager at the confluence of the Kispyap and Skeena rivers. The section from New Westminster to the Cariboo was bought by the Canadian Government in 1880." In spite of the project's economic failure, many regard aspects of the effort a success on the weight of various benefits the exploration brought to the regions that were traversed. To date, no entities have attempted a communications cable across the Bering Sea, with all extant submarine communications cables that travel westbound from North America following more southerly routes across much longer stretches of the North Pacific Ocean, connecting to Asia in Japan and then on to the Asian mainland.
Russian colonization of North America describes colonies and territories claimed by the Russian Empire in the Pacific Coast region of North America from 1732 to 1867. Russian colonial possessions in the Americas were collectively known as Russian America from 1799 to 1867. Russian America consisted mostly of present-day Alaska in the United States, but also included the outpost of Fort Ross in California. Russian Creole settlements were concentrated in Alaska, including the capital, New Archangel (Novo-Arkhangelsk), which is now Sitka. Russian expansion eastward began in 1552 with the Russo-Kazan wars and Russian explorers reached the Pacific Ocean in 1639. In 1725, Emperor Peter the Great ordered navigator Vitus Bering to explore the North Pacific for potential colonization. The Russians were primarily interested in the abundance of fur-bearing mammals on Alaska's coast, as stocks had been depleted by over hunting in the Siberian fur trade. Bering's first voyage was foiled by thick fog and ice, but in 1741 a second voyage by Bering and Aleksei Chirikov discovered part of the North American mainland. Bering claimed the Alaskan country for the Russian Empire. Russia later confirmed its rule over the territory with the Ukase of 1799 which established the southern border of Russian America along the 55th parallel north. The decree also provided monopolistic privileges to the state-sponsored Russian-American Company (RAC) and established the Russian Orthodox Church in Alaska. Russian promyshlenniki (trappers and hunters) quickly developed the maritime fur trade, which instigated several conflicts between the Aleuts and Russians in the 1760s. The fur trade proved to be a lucrative enterprise, capturing the attention of other European nations. In response to potential competitors, the Russians extended their claims eastward from the Commander Islands to the shores of Alaska. In 1784, with encouragement from Empress Catherine the Great, explorer Grigory Shelekhov founded Russia's first permanent settlement in Alaska at Three Saints Bay. Ten years later, the first group of Orthodox Christian missionaries arrived, evangelizing thousands of Native Americans, many of whose descendants continue to maintain the religion. By the late 1780s, trade relations had opened with the Tlingits, and in 1799 the RAC was formed to monopolize the fur trade, also serving as an imperialist vehicle for the Russification of Alaska Natives. Angered by encroachment on their land and other grievances, the indigenous peoples' relations with the Russians deteriorated. In 1802, Tlingit warriors destroyed several Russian settlements, most notably Redoubt Saint Michael (Old Sitka), leaving New Russia as the only remaining outpost on mainland Alaska. This failed to expel the Russians, who re-established their presence two years later following the Battle of Sitka. Peace negotiations between the Russians and Native Americans would later establish a modus vivendi, a situation that, with few interruptions, lasted for the duration of Russian presence in Alaska. In 1808, Redoubt Saint Michael was rebuilt as New Archangel and became the capital of Russian America after the previous colonial headquarters were moved from Kodiak. A year later, the RAC began expanding its operations to more abundant sea otter grounds in Northern California, where Fort Ross was built in 1812. By the middle of the 19th century, profits from Russia's North American colonies were in steep decline. Competition with the British Hudson's Bay Company had brought the sea otter to near extinction, while the population of bears, wolves, and foxes on land was also nearing depletion. Faced with the reality of periodic Native American revolts, the political ramifications of the Crimean War, and the inability to fully colonize the Americas to their satisfaction, the Russians concluded that their North American colonies were too expensive to retain. Eager to release themselves of the burden, the Russians sold Fort Ross in 1841, and in 1867, after less than a month of negotiations, the United States accepted Emperor Alexander II's offer to sell Alaska. The Alaska Purchase for $7.2 million (equivalent to $166 million in 2025) ended Imperial Russia's colonial presence in the Americas.
Russian Americans are Americans of full or partial Russian ancestry. The term can apply to recent Russian immigrants to the United States, as well as to Russian settlers and their descendants in the 19th-century Russian possessions in what is now Alaska. Russian Americans comprise the largest Eastern European and East Slavic population in the U.S., the second-largest Slavic population after Polish Americans, the nineteenth-largest ancestry group overall, and the eleventh largest from Europe. In the mid-19th century, Russian immigrants fleeing religious persecution settled in the U.S., including Russian Jews and Spiritual Christians. During the broader wave of European immigration to the U.S. that occurred from 1880 to 1917, a large number of Russians immigrated primarily for economic opportunities; these groups mainly settled in coastal cities, including Brooklyn (New York City) on the East Coast; Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and various cities in Alaska on the West Coast; and Chicago and Cleveland in the Great Lakes region. After the Russian Revolution and subsequent Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1922, many White émigrés also arrived, especially in New York, Philadelphia, and New England. Emigration from Russia subsequently became very restricted during the Soviet era (1917–1991). However, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, legal and illegal immigration to the United States increased considerably. In several major U.S. cities, many Jewish Americans who trace their heritage back to Russia and other Americans of East Slavic origin, such as Belarusian Americans and Rusyn Americans, sometimes identify as Russian Americans. Additionally, certain non-Slavic groups from the post-Soviet space, such as Armenian Americans, Georgian Americans, and Moldovan Americans, have a longstanding historical association with the Russian American community.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Joe Louis.