The Panama Canal officially opened in 1914.
The canal’s first official transit took place on August 15, 1914, when the cargo and passenger ship SS Ancon crossed from the Atlantic side to the Pacific side. It cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and uses a system of locks and an artificial lake to raise and lower ships through the continental divide.
A French company began an earlier construction effort in 1881, but disease, financial difficulties, and engineering problems halted that project. The United States resumed major construction in the early twentieth century. The canal was completed under American administration and became one of the world’s most important shipping routes.
The waterway greatly reduces the voyage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, avoiding the long route around Cape Horn. The United States controlled the canal zone for decades, and Panama assumed full control on December 31, 1999. A major expansion opened in 2016, adding larger locks.