The Great Big Purchase

In 1803, the leader of France, Napoleon, needed money for his wars and offered to sell a huge piece of land in the middle of North America.

President Thomas Jefferson said yes, and the United States paid about 15 million dollars for it.

That may sound like a lot, but for all that land it worked out to only about three cents an acre.

The new land was called the Louisiana Purchase, and it stretched from the Mississippi River all the way to the Rocky Mountains — doubling the size of the country overnight.

Because nobody had mapped it yet, Jefferson sent his friends Lewis and Clark to go take a look.