The Panama Canal: A History of One of the Most Difficult Engineering Projects Ever

The Panama Canal is a 48 mile waterway located in the country of Panama that joins the Pacific Ocean with the Atlantic. The conduit, essential to international trade as a bypass to the hazardous trade routes around South America, has been called one of the seven wonders of the modern world by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

It routinely has tens of thousands of ships pass through it every year, carrying over 300 million tons of cargo. The canal has shaved nearly 8,000 sailing miles ...