US Army built 1,500-mile Alaska Highway in just eight months

Imagine building a 1,500-mile road across frozen forests, high mountains, swamps and permafrost in less than a year. It sounds like an impossible engineering task, but that is exactly what the U.S. Army did during World War II. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers website, one of the most ambitious military construction projects in North American history was the Alaska Highway, built under pressure after Pearl Harbor was attacked. It was more than a road, it was a symbol of international cooperation, wartime urgency and human endurance under some of the toughest natural conditions on earth.Why the Alaska Highway was necessaryAlaska, although part of the United States, lies geographically apart from the other 48 states, separated by Canada. According to reports, in the 1920s, the U.S. proposed a highway through Canada to link Alaska with the mainland.