Happy 100th Birthday to the Panama Canal

Technology comes in many guises and one of the greatest technological marvels of the 20th century was certainly the building of the monumental Panama Canal. Built with a high cost both financially and in the number of lives it took to create, the project labored on over ten years to completion and fostered in some technological firsts that are still in use today. Happy Anniversary, Big Ditch!

Wow. Quaint and still a huge project

Not to mention malaria.

The Suez and Panama canals were game changers ... they saved lives and time both once they were completed as the much more dangerous routes around the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn were no longer as frequently used

There will be a new canal in few years that will take traffic from the Panama Canal.

The Nicaragua Canal:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_Canal

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE - The Panama Canal

http://video.pbs.org/video/1747929120/

They did a great job on this documentary, quite an amazing undertaking!

"On August 15th, 1914, the Panama Canal opened, connecting the world’s two largest oceans and signaling America’s emergence as a global superpower. American ingenuity and innovation had succeeded where, just a few years earlier, the French had failed disastrously. But the U.S. paid a price for victory."

Sabrewulf... said:

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE - The Panama Canal

http://video.pbs.org/video/1747929120/

They did a great job on this documentary, quite an amazing undertaking!

"On August 15th, 1914, the Panama Canal opened, connecting the world’s two largest oceans and signaling America’s emergence as a global superpower. American ingenuity and innovation had succeeded where, just a few years earlier, the French had failed disastrously. But the U.S. paid a price for victory."

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Huh, I had no idea the French attempted it first. From WIkipedia:

"...and the French effort eventually went bankrupt after reportedly spending US$287,000,000 and losing an estimated 22,000 lives to accident and disease."

I'm an Army brat that was born in the canal zone and went back and lived there a decade later. When I visited the locks as a kid I really wish I fully understood what it took to build what I was seeing.

It is amazing how the world swings from one extreme to another when correcting previous mistakes, before eventually returning to a normal sane balance.

In the past, there was a complete and total disregard for human life, where laborers were viewed as completely expendable, and if they died then it was their choice and their fault.

As a response we go absolutely ridiculously overboard, to where you have to fill out paperwork to ask for a bandaid if you get a papercut in the office, and then there's seminars to evaluate how such an issue can be avoided in the future. Something as simple as walking down stairs without holding the hand-rail results in extreme disciplinary action.

So sad that its like a bathtub sloshing water from side to side before it finally settles down, which seems to apply to just about everything, from overly uptight people to the hippy generation and so forth... sigh.

Ducman69 said:

It is amazing how the world swings from one extreme to another when correcting previous mistakes, before eventually returning to a normal sane balance.

In the past, there was a complete and total disregard for human life, where laborers were viewed as completely expendable, and if they died then it was their choice and their fault.

As a response we go absolutely ridiculously overboard, to where you have to fill out paperwork to ask for a bandaid if you get a papercut in the office, and then there's seminars to evaluate how such an issue can be avoided in the future. Something as simple as walking down stairs without holding the hand-rail results in extreme disciplinary action.

So sad that its like a bathtub sloshing water from side to side before it finally settles down, which seems to apply to just about everything, from overly uptight people to the hippy generation and so forth... sigh.

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I would think that it would take an overly uptight person to find a way to rant about humanity's ever changing state in a thread about the 100th b-day of the Panama Canal.

Oh yes, let's celebrate that time we overthrew a local government, and forced the puppet government we installed to sign an outrageous treaty giving us sovereign control of the canal region (or we withdraw our Marines protecting them), built a canal in miserable conditions killing some 25,000 workers, and then ~50 years after its completion, struggled to give it away as it was operating with such huge losses...

Muhrica!

Too bad we gave it away, it was one of the few money making resources the USA had.

CreepyUncleGoogle said:

I would think that it would take an overly uptight person to find a way to rant about humanity's ever changing state in a thread about the 100th b-day of the Panama Canal.

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And an attention deprived person to ignore the estimated 30K that died in its construction between the French and American efforts to post that for the sake of a response. Just ask for a e-hug next time. *hugs*

ep0x73 said:

Too bad we gave it away, it was one of the few money making resources the USA had.

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Uhm...

It was losing losing more money than the real estate industry in 2007. It was difficult to even GIVE it away at the time...

Love all the armchair and wikipedia historians that come out of the wood work on these topics.

Sweet! A lot of work was put into that.

Zarathustra[H];1041031485 said:

Uhm...

It was losing losing more money than the real estate industry in 2007. It was difficult to even GIVE it away at the time...

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With the thousands of ships that pass through it each year I find it hard to believe it was losing money.

Suppose if we stuck to the 99 year lease it would have been ours up til last year then.

Zarathustra[H];1041031485 said:

It was losing losing more money than the real estate industry in 2007. It was difficult to even GIVE it away at the time...

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Nonsense, this was a purely "feel good" move by the left winger peanut farmer president... and yet people still vote Democrat to this day. Repeating the same action over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. STAHP! *facepalm*

Ducman69 said:

Nonsense, this was a purely "feel good" move by the left winger peanut farmer president... and yet people still vote Democrat to this day. Repeating the same action over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. STAHP! *facepalm*

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This wasn't something new to Carter.

Every single postwar administration (Democratic AND Republican) starting with Truman took some levels of action in order to try to dump the canal due to its financial problems, but found it difficult to do so due to misguided american "pride" making it politically impossible.

Prior to WWII the canal was a huge financial success, due to it creating easy shipping lanes between the east and west coasts, but with the creating of the interstate system, and growing use of diesel locomotives and the expanding rail network in the post war period, it was rapidly becoming less important, and starting to lose money.

But lets set all that aside for a moment.

It doesn't really matter if it was a financial success or not. Sure, american money built it, but it was on conquered land in a foreign country, and as such, keeping it in the modern era, where non-dictatorial nations no longer annex land and grow through military conquest, keeping it was a moral impossibility.

We should never have built it in the first place. It was wrong. The land wasn't ours, and the actions leading up to seizing U.S. control of the canal zone prior to its completion were morally and ethically wrong. The least we could do was return it, even if that doesn't make up for past wrongs, and doesn't bring the some 25,000 workers who died under our watch building it, back to life.

This is part of Americas ugly history, which I think we are better off NOT celebrating.

We have a lot to be proud of as a nation. Conquering other nations, taking their land and building things under terrible unsafe conditions resulting in the deaths of thousands is not one of them.

Let's instead commemorate the GOOD things we have done, please?

The Panama Canal was built under budget and run at tremendous profit through its tolls, and Panama was neither using the land nor could have ever built the Canal they not only enjoy today, but voted unanimously to expand because so much of their economy depends upon the massive profits it brings in. Ships will pay upwards of $150K just to be bumped ahead in line, and there is virtually a constant line to get through.

Zarathustra[H];1041031262 said:

Oh yes, let's celebrate that time we overthrew a local government, and forced the puppet government we installed to sign an outrageous treaty giving us sovereign control of the canal region (or we withdraw our Marines protecting them), built a canal in miserable conditions killing some 25,000 workers, and then ~50 years after its completion, struggled to give it away as it was operating with such huge losses...

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Sounds like you're lumping the French fiasco under Americans with your stats anyway. And it immediately increased profitabiltiy after the turn over which lined up nicely for all the damn importing we do.

It makes a few billion in revenue and has half a billion in expenses not bad for something that would cost magnitude more than that to create.

Ducman69 said:

And an attention deprived person to ignore the estimated 30K that died in its construction between the French and American efforts to post that for the sake of a response. Just ask for a e-hug next time. *hugs*

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Yuck! Keep your beard and your hugs to yourself.

Also, yes people died there, but I'm pretty sure a lot more than 30,000 people have died from drunk driving or texting or owning a gun and no one's banned drinking, phones, or guns yet because of voters who own pickup trucks.