Modern Marvels: The Construction of the Panama Canal (S1, E3) | Full Episode | History

Work with the natural order. Every ship passing through the Panama Canal must be raised 85' over the natural terrain, and lowered 85' to meet the ocean on the other side. This feat is accomplished without any pumps. Gravity moves millions of gallons of water from mountain lakes down to the lock chambers. As long as precipitation refills the lakes,

... See more

The agreement also provided for a payment for French holdings in Panama amounting to $40 million, which was the largest real-estate transaction in all history. The fact that the government had paid more for the rights to build and control the Panama Canal than had been expended on the Louisiana Purchase, the Alaskan territory, and the Philippine Is

... See more

The Cuban model resonated. When the Roosevelt administration sought a transoceanic canal to connect its Atlantic trade to its Pacific trade (larger now that the United States had Pacific territories), it eyed the Panama isthmus in Colombia. But it neither bought nor conquered it. Instead, Roosevelt’s government encouraged Panamanian nationalists to

... See more

Prior to the railroad there had been no regular thoroughfare across the Isthmus of Panama, and this despite the fact that Panama had been a crossroads between the Atlantic and Pacific since the time of the Spanish conquest. Except for a few isolated villages scattered along the Chagres River, the interior was an unbroken wilderness, little changed

... See more