Why Isn't Alaska Part Of Canada? And More Exclaves Explained

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• published: 29 Jan 2017
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Ever wonder why Alaska isn't part of Canada? Or why Northern Ireland isn't part of Ireland? Or why Nakhichevan is seperated from the rest of Azerbaijan? Here's why twitter.com/matthewbr5231 Script: Hey guys, Matthew here And you’re watching Gallium productions Alaska, USA Alaska is bordered by the Yukon Territory of Canada to the east, the Canadian province British Columbia to the south, and has incredibly close maritime boundaries with Russia in the west. Despite this, it’s part of the United states. Here’s why In 1725, Russian Czar Peter the Great dispatched Danish explorer Vitus Bering to explore the Alaskan coast. In the 1850’s, the British and French captured the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, in Kamchatka, a Russian peninsula on the East coast of Asia The Russians figured that if they couldn’t protect parts of Kamchatka from the British, they would have a hard time protecting Alaska The Russians also couldn’t hunt whales or mine coal, and couldn’t find very much gold They also were attacked by natives many times The tsar and his advisors met in St Petersburg to discuss how to defend Alaska from the British and native attacks This led to them discussing whether or not Alaska was worth keeping In the end, they decided to sell Alaska Russia offered it to the Americans in 1857, but then the American Civil War happened On March 30 1867, the US bought Alaska from the Russians But why didn’t the british empire buy Alaska? Well, the British and the Russians had recently been at war with each other The Russians didn’t want to give land to the British, especially land that close to Russia Then, three months later, Canada stopped being part of the British empire And ever since, people have been wondering why Alaska isn’t part of Canada But Alaska isn’t the only place like this Many other countries have pieces detached, called “exclaves” Here’s the history behind two others Northern Ireland, United Kingdom Northern ireland is part of the United Kingdom, but its only land border is with Ireland Here’s why Ulster, the region of Ireland that is now the British province of Northern Ireland, was the most resistant to British rule in the early 1600’s So, Scottish and English settlers took land from the Irish in the North Within a few decades, the Protestant British population in Ulster was flourishing, even outnumbering the Gaelic Irish Catholics in some parts In the late 1800’s, many bills were proposed for Irish home rule The North, being mostly descended from the English and Scottish settlers, didn’t want to be independent, and formed the Unionist party In the 1900’s, there was an Irish war for independance, and it ended with Ireland being split into Northern and Southern Ireland, and Southern Ireland getting home rule The war for independence continued, and Ireland became a dominion of the british commonwealth, like Canada and Australia at the time This included the entire island of Ireland, but included an opt-out clause for Northern Ireland, which they then used, what with it being mostly unionist And that's why Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom Nakhichevan, Azerbaijan The Nakhichevan autonomous republic of Azerbaijan is separated from the main part of the country and only borders Iran, Armenia and Turkey Why isn’t it part of Armenia or Iran? Here’s why Azerbaijan and ARmenia were both part of the USSR Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan were connected by the province Zangezur Then, the Soviet Union considered giving Nakhchivan to Armenia A referendum showed that 90% of the population didn’t want that However, the Soviets gave Armenia the province Zangezur, splitting Azerbaijan And that’s why Nakhichevan is separate from Azerbaijan Sources: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/alaska-purchase http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/russians-settle-alaska http://www.akhistorycourse.org/russias-colony/the-sale-of-russian-america https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCJMQgfHXNI http://eurasia.travel/azerbaijan/azerbaijan_cities/nakhichevan/history_of_nakhchivan/ https://www.britannica.com/place/Naxcivan-republic-Azerbaijan