Forty five years after the U.S. first considered building a canal through Central America, the Panama Canal opened to the public. French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps completes work on the Suez ...

His plan called for a sea-level canal to be dug along the path of the Panama Railroad. Some 50 miles in length, the canal would be less than half as long as the Suez. De Lesseps estimated that the ...

Julie Green, a history professor at the University of Maryland, also told PBS in 2014 that the Panama Canal was the “largest public construction project in U.S. history.” ...