#Panama January 7

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Today for the 30-Day Movie Coach4aday Challenge I watched a movie on PANAMA.

Located my 1987 film on YouTube and it was called “A Man. A Plan, A Canal-Panama”. The film was narrated by David McCullough and was a wonderful history lesson on how this engineering marvel got completed.

History Lessons Learned

There were so many cool things about this movie that I learned for the first time.

Ferdinand, viscount de Lesseps who built the Suez Canal was the man who was responsible for starting the project in Panama. His company went bankrupt after 8 years and to the French the word Panama soon became associated with the word swindle.

America paid Panama 10 million Dollars to build the canal and paid France 40 million for their assets in 1902. In 1999 the US signed a treaty to give control of the canal back to Panama.

Over 25,000 workers died building the canal with almost 20,000 occurring during France’s efforts from 1881 to 1888.

The abundant rainfall in the forests of Panama remain critical in keeping the canal opened.

The average toll for a ship to travel the canal is $150,000 which is based on weight. The larger cargo containers pay much more.