Notes

The history of the Panama Canal flys back almost to the earliest explorers of the Americas. It started as a hope for a waterway through Panama. The narrow land bridge between North and South America houses the Panama Canal, a water passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The earliest European colonists of Central America recognized this potential, and schemes for such a canal were floated several times in the subsequent years. By the late nineteenth century, technological advances and commercial pressure advanced to the point where construction started in earnest. An initial attempt by France to build a sea-level canal failed, but only after a great amount of excavation was carried out. This was of use to the United States, which completed the present Panama Canal in 1913 and officially opened it in 1914. Along the way, the state of Panama was created through its separation from Colombia in 1903, due to a US backed revolt, so the US could then get control of the Canal project area.

Today, the canal continues to be not only a viable commercial venture, but also a vital link in world shipping.

Philippe-Jean Bunaua-Varilla changed people's opinion on the location to build a canal. The United States wished to build a canal in Nicaragua, however Philippe-Jean convinced them to build it in Panama. He had been involved in building canals in France. Towards the end of the 1890s Bunaua-Varilla convinced the American lawmakers to buy the rights to build the French canal in Panama because Nicaragua was unsafe due to dangerous Volcanoes. He then sent Nicaragua postage stamps with a smoking volcano on them to each senator to persuade their vote. Although in 1903 Colombia (which Panama was a part of) refused to agree to allow the United States to build the canal. The people of Panama, with help from Philippe-Jean Bunaua-Varilla, overthrew Colombia and ruled Panama as independent which made the production of the canal possible. The idea of building a canal across Central America was suggested again by German scientist Alexander von Humboldt[citation needed], which led to a revival of interest in the early-19th century. In 1819, the Spanish government authorized the construction of a canal and the creation of a company to build it.