1. In 1869, the Sitka City and Borough was incorporated, making it Alaska's first incorporated city.

2. On October 19, 1921, the U.S. Army Signal Corps completed a transcontinental round-trip flight from New York to Nome, Alaska, and back, taking 404 hours and covering 9,000 miles.

3. In 1963, the Good Friday earthquake, the most powerful recorded earthquake in U.S. history, struck the Prince William Sound area of Alaska, causing widespread damage and triggering a massive tsunami that devastated coastal communities.

4. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) was signed into law on October 19, 1971. The act granted Alaska Natives ownership of 44 million acres of land and a $962.5 million settlement in exchange for relinquishing their aboriginal land claims.

5. In 2011, the University of Alaska Fairbanks unveiled the world's largest telescope, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), at its facility in Chile. ALMA is capable of scanning the universe in millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths, providing unprecedented detail on the origins of galaxies and planets.