History of the Panama Canal: A long journey

The 48 miles long international waterway, which is known as the Panama Canal permits various ships to pass between the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean. This saves nearly 8000 miles of journey around the southern tip of South America, which is Cape Horn. Focusing on the history of the Panama canal, it has been a part of the federation and the country of Colombia from the year 1819. Earlier, Colombia was rejected the plans of United States to build a canal across Isthmus of Panama, but then the United States supported a revolution leading to the independence of Panama in the year 1903.

The Panama Canal was successfully constructed from 1904-1914 even though the French had attempted to built it during 1880s. History of the Panama canal is really great. After the completion of the canal, the US held a swath of land that runs nearly 50 miles across the Isthmus of Panama. Throughout the 20th century, the partition of the country of Panama into two parts by the US territory of the Canal Zone has raised many tensions. Addition to that, the self-contained Canal Zone was contributed a little of the Panamanian economy, which was officially named for the US territory in Panama.

During 1960s, anger flared leading to the riots of anti-American and to solve the territorial issue, Panamanian governments started to work together. Later in the year 1977, the US president Jimmy Carter signed a treaty that settled to return 60% of the Canal Zone in the year 1979 to Panama. The canal and the remaining territory were finally returned to them on 31 December 1999, which is known as the Canal Area. In addition to this, a bi-national transitional Panama Canal Commission ran the canal from 1979 to 1999. Transition at the end of the year 1999 was very smooth. More than 90% of the employees in canal were Panamanian. So knowing the history of the Panama canal will be proved very much interesting to you.

The treaty was established by the 1977 treaty as a neutral international waterway that assured guaranteed safe passage to the vessel even during the time of war. Finally, after the 1999 hand-over, the US and Panama together shared duties to protect the canal. In September 2007, the canal underwent an expansion project of $5.2 billion that is about to complete until 2014. This will allow more ships to pass through the canal.

The expansion project will also double the amount of goods that could be passed through the canal.