The Panama Canal: America’s Greatest Feat of Engineering

On this episode of Our American Stories, the dream of the Panama Canal began long before it became real. For centuries, people imagined a passage that would unite the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and open the world to faster trade. The French tried first, but disease and disaster claimed their dream. When the United States took over, Theodore Roosevelt called it a mission worthy of a great nation. What followed was one of the most difficult projects in history. Men from across the world arrived to dig, blast, and clear the Isthmus of Panama, working in punishing heat and thick jungle. Malaria and yellow fever swept through the camps, and entire families lost fathers, brothers, and sons before the canal was complete. Yet from that suffering came a triumph of engineering and perseverance that reshaped global trade forever. Here to tell the story is Simon Whistler from the Today I Found Out YouTube channel and its sister show, the Brain Food Show podcast. Also contributing to this story is the late, great historian David McCullough.

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