PANAMA CANAL

Assignment - The Great Panama Canal

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The Great Panama Canal

A dream navigator from the sixteenth century, the Panama Canal is a feat of engineering, a testament to the ingenuity, perseverance and sacrifice of those who made it possible. Of the more than 75,000 workers who worked in construction, 20,000 were killed by frequent landslides and tropical diseases. The crossing of the first ship, Anton, through its locks, in August 1914, became the motto of "the land divided, the world united." (McCullough, 1977).

History of Canal

The ships which carry the goods for people from and to the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean initially faced major problems with the carriage, supply and fuel costs. These were the problems which were faced back then by the traders as the shippers and captains have to take their ships all the way across the oceans to travel to and fro the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. The early Roman Emperor and the King of Spain, Charles the fifth (5th) had to send the wealth include gold and silver to send back to Spain. A few years earlier in 1532 Francisco Pizarro who was a conquistador of Spain had captured Peru and defeated Inca Empire. So the wealth had to be send to the Europe all the way from the tip of South America. The king had to deal with the better ways to send his wealth to the Europe (Jorden, 1984).

Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, in 1513 had revealed that in Central America, there was a narrow piece of land that was narrow and was not more than eighty kilometres wide, which could separate Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean apart. He supposed to dig the canal across the land to connect both the oceans so that ships can pass by through the land.

The different altitudes from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean through the land to connect the oceans, is known as the Panama Canal. The construction history of the Panama Canal is the story of human courage and ingenuity, great and ultimate losses, years of sacrifice and the final victory. There were many who lost their lives in the effort. Learn the history from the beginnings of the French construction period, until the completion of the work by the United States and the waterway today.

The Panama Canal is not simply one of the engineering works listed as the most prominent of humanity, and even as one more of the many wonders of the world. Of course among other thing, which at first makes this effort unique construction, is the peaceful way through which it was possible to carry out such an undertaking with a single goal pursued for centuries, uniting the two oceans.

According to historical data, the first man to sort the first inquiries and studies on the possibility of creating a new path as a channel that directly traverse the Isthmus of Panama was Carlos V of Spain. And while work began three hundred years later, more precisely in 1880, by French workers and engineers, ...