Learn how the Panama Canal's rivers, canals, and lakes with locks link the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
Since its opening in 1914, the Panama Canal has linked the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Transcript
[Music in]
NARRATOR: Despite an earlier failure by the French, in 1904 the U.S. began work on the Panama Canal, one of the modern world's most ambitious engineering schemes.
A fifty-mile waterway, connecting canals, rivers, and lakes with locks, was built through the narrowest part of Panama.
The cost was astronomical, but the end result was the realization of a dream. For, at last, the Atlantic and Pacific oceans were linked by a waterway.
Now, ships could use the canal to shorten travel from New York to San Francisco and from Europe to the ports of Asia.
[Music out]
NARRATOR: Despite an earlier failure by the French, in 1904 the U.S. began work on the Panama Canal, one of the modern world's most ambitious engineering schemes.
A fifty-mile waterway, connecting canals, rivers, and lakes with locks, was built through the narrowest part of Panama.
The cost was astronomical, but the end result was the realization of a dream. For, at last, the Atlantic and Pacific oceans were linked by a waterway.
Now, ships could use the canal to shorten travel from New York to San Francisco and from Europe to the ports of Asia.
[Music out]