The first Panama Canal ship transit took place in 1914.
The canal officially opened on 15 August 1914, when the cargo and passenger ship SS Ancon completed the first formal transit. It crosses the Isthmus of Panama and links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, allowing ships to avoid the long voyage around Cape Horn at South America’s southern tip.
Construction was begun by France in the 1880s but abandoned after disease, engineering difficulties, and financial problems. The United States took over the project in the early twentieth century and completed it using a lock canal design. The canal’s locks lift ships to Gatun Lake and then lower them toward the opposite coast.
The opening coincided with the beginning of World War I, so the canal’s global impact developed gradually. The United States controlled the canal for decades before transferring full control to Panama on 31 December 1999. A major expansion opened in 2016 for larger ships.