From the History of American Hegemony: The USA as “Global Greatest Power. From Alaska (1867) to Europe (1917)
By Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic
Introduction
It can be indicated from a historical viewpoint that the USA emerged on the stage of global (world) politics in 1867 (four years before Germany did the same in 1871 after the Franco−Prussian War of 1870−1871). Both these imperial states at the same time exerted extremely influential politics in the process of radical transformation of the modern world both in Europe and outside of the Old Continent. In 1867, Washington purchased Alaska from Russia (regardless of the claims that Russia just rented Alaska for 99 years), and in April 1917, the USA entered the Great War on the side of France and the UK (after the Russian February/March Revolution in 1917) and brought about a decisive defeat of the German Second Empire on the Western Front in the Autumn of 1918 making at the same time as a direct consequence itself the global greatest power.