Panama+Canal

The earliest ideas about the Panama Canal started back in 1534 when the king of Spain ordered that a route be sent to the Americas. He had ordered it because he thought that that route could ease the voyage of ships to Spain and Peru. Plus with that kind of advantage, the Spain military could then have control of Peru and take over. In 1788 Thomas Jefferson had suggested that since tropical ocean currents could disturb the building, that the Spanish should do it. Later in 1788-1793 Alessandro Malaspina had started an expedition. Doubts were around considering back in 1698, Scotland had set up the Darien scheme yet weather and other conditions had left that plan abandoned.

France attempted first to construct the canal under the leadership of Ferdinand de Lesseps on January 1, 1881 with financial support from Paris. France eventually called of the contstruction after spending $287,000,000 and 22,000 lives being lost due to accident and the diseases known as malaria, and yellow fever. The United States then acquired the canal on May 4, 1904. The United States quickly upgraded the old French equipment with much better equipment. They spent almost $375,000,000 to finish the canal. The canal was finished being built by the United States in 1914 which would be the largest American engineering project than anything before it.

As of now, it has been over 100 years since the Panama Canals opened. It is still a vital component in the worlds shipping industry. Even though world shipping and the ships themselves have drastically changed over the years, there is still great success with the Canal.There has been some water damage leading to a 17 hour closure of the canal in 2010 which delayed things for ongoing shipments. Right now the capacity for the Canal is expanding and going over more than they had ever expected. In 1934, they onloy said that the traffic would be up to 80 million, now its reaching the perk of 299.1 million shipments since 2009.