For decades people around the world dreamed of building a canal through Central America to allow ships to sail quickly and easily from the Atlantic to the Pacific. With such a canal, ships would no longer have to sail around Cape Horn or through the Strait of Magellan to transport goods from Europe to Asia or from New York to California.

From 1881 to 1887, a French company in Panama worked to build a canal through an isthmus; an isthmus is small piece of land connecting two large pieces of land. The work cost the French almost $300 million and caused the deaths of about 20,000 workers. After sacrificing all these lives and spending all this money, only about one third of the canal had been dug.

The U.S. government wanted to build a canal and developed an official plan. The government offered to pay the Colombian government $10 million plus $250,000 per year in exchange for the right to build and control the canal. The Colombians refused, thus angering President Theodore Roosevelt. The U.S. government then supported a group of Panamanian rebels who revolted against the Colombians. In 1903, the United States recognized the new country of Panama and paid it the money the United States had offered to Colombia. The United States immediately began work on the canal.

The work was incredibly difficult and dangerous. Almost 6,000 Americans died. Many more became sick with malaria and yellow fever, diseases that mosquitoes transmit. Finally, on August 15, 1914, the canal opened—a tribute to American engineering and a boost to U.S. and Panamanian economies.