The Panama Canal is a 50-mile-long canal bisecting the isthmus of Panama. It connects the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean. Ships taking this canal can avoid the long journey that was once necessary for getting from one side of the Americas to the other -- a route that went all the way around the southern tip of South America.
The creation of a canal at the site was first proposed in 1534. King Charles V of Spain conceived the idea of cutting down on the time it took to make trans-Atlantic ship voyages by creating a man-made waterway. The continuing state of war in Europe at the time kept this idea from coming to fruition.
Groundbreaking on the Panama Canal began in 1881, but the canal wasn't completed until 1914. The French government was in charge of building the canal until it abandoned the project in 1889. The United States took control of construction at that point and oversaw the canal's completion.
The full human cost of building the Panama Canal will never be fully known. Thousands of workers had to deal with malaria, yellow fever, landslides and the extreme weather of the jungle. At least 22,000 workers had died by the time the French pulled out, and thousands more died before the canal was completed.
The Panama Canal officially opened on Aug. 15, 1914. The first ship to pass through the canal was named the Ancon. The Ancon was nothing more impressive than a boat that had been used to deliver cement during construction.
The toll charge to pass through the Panama Canal is based on the size of the vessel, its type and what is being carried. To date, the lowest toll charged was in 1928, when adventurer Richard Halliburton paid 36 cents to swim the length of the canal. The highest toll was paid by a Disney cruise ship, which paid more than $330,000 in 2008.
The Panama Canal zone was technically American property throughout most of the 20th century. Panamanians began to argue that because the canal was in their country, they should own the rights. Negotiations to return ownership of the canal back to Panama began in 1974 and resulted in a treaty signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. But Panama didn't take control of the canal until Dec. 31, 1999.
