It probably is the largest land deal ever made, and in many ways, it changed the world. The Louisiana purchase was made 221 years ago, when the nascent and fledging United States bought roughly 830,000 square miles of territory, west of Mississippi river from France at a price of 15 million dollars or about 4 cents an acre. It was a breathtaking bargain, if not a steal and it added to the US a land area larger than today’s France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Holland, Switzerland and the British Isles combined.
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Louisiana Purchase and the Making of America
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It probably is the largest land deal ever made, and in many ways, it changed the world. The Louisiana purchase was made 221 years ago, when the nascent and fledging United States bought roughly 830,000 square miles of territory, west of Mississippi river from France at a price of 15 million dollars or about 4 cents an acre. It was a breathtaking bargain, if not a steal and it added to the US a land area larger than today’s France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Holland, Switzerland and the British Isles combined.