Suez Canal - The First Ship to Pass Through the Canal

The official story goes that the first ship to pass through the Suez Canal was an Imperial French yacht, the Léal. But it was in fact a British ship called the HMS Newport that was the first ships to go through its captain George Nares. Britain was very pleased with him for cocking his snook at the rest of the world like that. They were big fans of him sort of thumbing his nose at the people who had made this canal happen because of course remember the British didn't never wanted the thing to exist.