Can’t do this anywhere else. Your call š± pic.twitter.com/BtWCpbM87C
ā Bobby Guntoro (@bobbygunt) July 18, 2024
August 15, 1914. The United States assumed and completed the Panama Canal after Franceās 1880s attempt collapsed amid bankruptcy, disease, and engineering failure. President Theodore Roosevelt secured the route by supporting Panamaās 1903 independence from Colombia and negotiating the HayāBunau-Varilla Treaty, which granted the U.S. control of a 10-mile Canal Zone. America purchased French assets for $40 million and paid Panama $10 million plus an annuity.
U.S. Army engineers, led first by John Stevens and then Colonel George Goethals, abandoned a sea-level design for a lock-and-lake system. They created Gatun Lakeāthe worldās largest artificial lake at the timeāand excavated nearly 240 million cubic yards of earth. Physician William Gorgasās sanitation campaign virtually eliminated yellow fever and malaria, slashing the death toll that had doomed the French. At a cost of about $375 millionāthe most expensive U.S. construction project to that dateāthe canal opened on 15 August 1914, linking the Atlantic and Pacific and transforming global trade and naval strategy.
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