Bryan winder, age 12, of Jackson, Miss., for his question:
WHEN WAS THE PANAMA CANAL BUILT?
Crossing Central America to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans is the Panama Canal. It ranks as one of man's greatest engineering achievements. President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the official opening of the Canal on July 12, 1920.
Throughout most of the 1800 s, both the United States and Great Britain considered a canal across Nicaragua. During the 1840s, the two nations almost went to war because of disputes over which one would control the proposed canal.
In the late 1800s, several French companies worked on a Panama Canal project. The first, headed by an adventurer named Lucien Wyse, sold its franchise to a French company headed by Ferdinand de Lesseps, the man who had directed the construction of the Suez Canal. This second company went bankrupt in 1889.
In 1902, Congress gave President Theodore Roosevelt permission to accept a French offer to build the Panama Canal if Colombia agreed. At the time, Panama was a province of Colombia.
A group of Panamanians feared that Panama would lose the commercial benefits of a canal across the isthmus. The French company worried about losing the sale of its property to the United States. The Panamanians, with the help of the French and some encouragement from the United States, revolted against Colombia on November 3, 1903, and declared Panama independent.
On November 6, 1903, the United States recognized the Republic of Panama. Less than two weeks later, Panama and the United States signed a treaty that gave the United States use and control of a zone 10 miles wide. The U.S. paid Panama $10 million plus $250,000 per year.
In 1907 construction started. At the height of the work in 1913, more than 43,400 persons worked on the Canal. Three fourths of the laborers were Negroes from the British West Indies. Others came from Italy and Spain. Most of the clerical and skilled workers came from the United States.
The main work of building the Panama Canal was completed in 1914. On August 15, 1914, a passenger cargo ship owned by the Panama Railroad Company, the S.S. Ancon, made the first complete trip through the Canal. It sailed from the Atlantic to the Pacific and made the words on the official seal of the Canal Zone a reality: "The Land Divided, the World United."
A giant landslide in the Gaillard Cut closed the Canal for several months in 1915 and 1916. It was the last major interruption in the operation of the Canal before President Wilson proclaimed it officially open on July 12, 1920.
The Canal cost the United States about $380 million. This included the $40 million paid to the French company, the $10 million paid to Panama and $20 million for sanitation.
The remaining $310 million was spent for the actual construction work.