More handpicked essays just for you.
Thesis statement for the panama canal
History of the panama canal essay
Thesis statement for the panama canal
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The Panama Canal
1. The panama canal
It is the canal across the Isthmus of Panama, in Central America, that allows vessels to travel between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans
The waterway measures 82 km (50 mi), including dredged approach channels at each end.
The Panama Canal handles a large volume of world shipping and enables vessels to avoid traveling around South America, reducing their voyages by thousands of miles and many days
Built by the United States from 1904 to 1914, the Panama Canal posed major engineering challenges
The canal consists of artificially created lakes, channels, and a series of locks, or water-filled chambers, that raise and lower ships through the mountainous terrain of central Panama
It was the largest and most complex project of this kind ever undertaken at that time, employing tens of thousands of workers and costing $350 million
The canal cuts through the central and most populated region of Panama, and it has been a point of dispute between the governments of Panama and the United States through most of its existence.
Under a 1903 treaty, the United States controlled both the waterway and a large section of the surrounding land, known as the Panama Canal Zone,
riots and international pressure led the United States to negotiate two new treaties, which were signed in 1977 and took effect in 1979. The treaties recognized Panama's ultimate ownership of the canal
1. Traveling through the panama
The canal consists of dredged approaches and three sets of sets of locks at each end;
The canal employs about 240 highly trained and experienced pilots to handle the complex job of steering ships through the waterway. As soon as the pilot takes over, the ship is under canal jurisdiction.
Very large or hard-to-maneuver ships may require two or more pilots and assistance from tugboats.
The ship travels south-southeast about 7 miles and enters the first lock at Gatún
Line handlers at the lock attach steel mooring cables that are controlled by powerful electric locomotives, called mules. The mules guide the ship through the locks and steady it while the chambers are filled with water
To conserve water, smaller ships often go through the locks together
The entire trip through the canal takes between 8 and 10 hours plus waiting time.
The canal operates 24 hours a day year-round. Each ship that travels through the canal pays a toll based on its capacity
used by the boat was essential for communication and the safety of its passengers. The Titanic,
...States and Columbia over the Panama Canal, a planned "revolt" breaks out in Panama, led by Philipe Baneau-Varilla. This "revolt" gives the United States a reason to bring their military into Latin America, as the troops are sent in to Panama to maintain order. Panama gained their independence from Columbia thanks to the aid of the United States, and they helped the America complete the Panama Canal, which was finished in 1913.
While all of this was going on, the ideas for another major canal were just coming together. The Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Canal, was just beginning near the time the Erie’s construction finished up. The C&O canal would mostly be used to transport coal to Cumberland, Maryland. The building of the canal ended on June 11, 1850, at Cumberland. Although not the economic giant that the Erie was, the C&O canal reached it’s peak in 1870, during which tolls often topped $1,000(Drago 71).
Next, he built the Panama Canal to protect both seas of America.
...dered the construction of the Panama Canal which connected the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.
Over the course of the Spanish-American war , the obvious need for a canal came apparent.The canal would stregthen the navy, and it would make easier defense of the islands in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The problem of where to build the canal came into play. Congress rejected Nicaragua and Panama was an unwilling part of this project. The course of the building was shifted to Colu...
was and still is an ideal spot to build such a canal because of its elevation and proportion.
The completion of the canal in 1825 led to a two way trade system. Boats would travel East with supplies from the Great Lakes and the surrounding territory and return with settlers and passengers travelling West, which became an extensive business (Johnson 375). The economic success and prosperity of the Canal also provided motivation for the construction of railroads West, including the transcontinental railroad (Seelye 264). The Erie Canal determined the flow of commerce in the United States for over a century (Seelye 252).
The History of the Panama Canal The Panama Canal is called the big ditch, the bridge between two continents, and the greatest shortcut in the world. When it was finally finished in 1914, the 51-mile waterway cut off over 7,900 miles of the distance between New York and San Francisco, and changed the face of the industrialized world ("Panama Canal"). This Canal is not the longest, the widest, the deepest, or the oldest canal in the world, but it is the only canal to connect two oceans, and still today is the greatest man-made waterway in the world ("Panama Canal Connects). Ferdinand de Lesseps, who played a large role in building the Suez Canal in 1869 (Jones), was the director of the Compagnie Universelle Du Canal Interoceanique de Panama ("Historical Overview").
To begin to appreciate some of the problems, the initial mandate of the waterway and how it has been traditionally facilitated must be examined. From the beginning, the basics of the system were clear...
The Erie Canal is a waterway in New York that runs 363 miles from Albany, New York, on the Hudson River to Buffalo, New York, at Lake Erie, completing a navigable water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. The canal contains 36 locks which allows a boat to go from one level of a water to another level lower by raising the water level in one section which lets the boat move from one lock to the next. By doing this, the Erie Canal makes a once non-accessible waterway a common mean of transportation for both goods and people.
After 10 long years and 1.5 million hard-workers, the largest canal of it’s kind was completed under the watch of French developer, Ferdinand de Lesseps.1 The Suez Canal is a 120 mile long and 670 feet wide man-made waterway that connecting the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. The Suez Canal was built under Napoleon’s rule2 in order to cut out a numerous amount of miles off of the sea passage from European to Asian markets. It created a passageway the made the journey around the Cape of Good Hope unnecessary.3 The Suez Canal amplified Western power and technology by transforming the globe.2 Because of the international reliance on the canal, control over the canal was constantly being fought over. The Suez Canal Crisis of 1956 was a battle defending the rights Great Britain felt they had over the Suez Canal Company and surrounding region that escalated into an international conflict tat could not be solved civilly without the help of United Nations.
When it opened, the Suez Canal was relatively small and narrow – only 25 feet deep, 72 feet wide at the bottom, and 200 to 300 feet wide at the surface. Due to its size, only a small number of ships navigated it in its first full year of operation. Improvements were attempted in 1876 and the canal soon grew into the one of the world’s most used waterway for shipping purposes. The Suez Canal provided safer, faster navigation to India and East Asia than navigating around South Africa and the dangerous waters of the Cape of Good Hope.
Today the canal retains a small float of cargo carrying vessels, but it's purpose has temporarily changed to offering vacational cruises on boats.
The idea of building a Canal dates back to ages before this century for different proposes. In the modern age, Napoleon Bonaparte was the first who made an effort to build the canal to destroy the English trading. In 1799, the project begun by Charles Le Pere but an arithmetical error showed that the Red Sea was ten meter higher than the Mediterranean...