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The Panama Canal, which joins the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, crosses the narrow Isthmus of Panama. The waterway cuts thousands of miles off journeys which would otherwise need to round Cape Horn. Stretching 51 miles from deep water at either end, more than 20 miles of the waterway is along the large artificial Gatún Lake to which ships are raised through a series of enormous canal locks. The idea of building a canal to join the two oceans stretches back to the 16th century. However, it wasn’t until 1881 that a French team under engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps began work on a sea-level canal. Although Lesseps had previously built the Suez Canal, his attempt to cut across the Isthmus of Panama made slow progress. The project was abandoned, and canal building only resumed after the United States took on the project after supporting the independence movement in Panama to break free of Colombia. American construction began in 1904, and enormous investment funds were spent on all aspects of the project from improved medical facilities to modern heavy machinery such as steam shovels that were used to excavate the deep channel. It was such an important project that Theodore Roosevelt became the first sitting president to travel outside the United States when he went to inspect progress in 1906. On 10 October 1913, President Woodrow Wilson detonated the explosives that blew up the last remaining dyke and joined the waters of the two oceans together. Although ships involved in the construction passed along the waterway first, the Panama Canal was officially opened on 15 August 1914 with the passage of the cargo ship SS Ancon.
