Building the Panama Canal (a special episode for Emily Murrah)

Real Cool History for Kids

Angela O'Dell

Education, Kids & Family, Stories For Kids

4.7 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2026

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Episode 178: Building the Panama Canal (a special episode for Emily Murrah)

Thanks so much for listening to Real Cool History for Kids! If you and your family are enjoying this adventure, I'd love to invite you to keep the fun going. You can find even more stories, activities, and resources over on my website!

I'm also so excited to share that the first book in a brand-new story series, The Chronicles of Liberty, is on its way! Join Miss Agatha Liberty, a brave little mouse with a big love for freedom, as she discovers the stories she was meant to protect and learns from the wisdom found in the history-mice journals. It's a whole new way to experience the story of America—mouse-sized!

We've also created a brand-new community just for families like yours over on Facebook—come join us, share what you're learning, and connect with other history-loving kids and parents..

And don't forget to follow along on Instagram for behind-the-scenes peeks, fun history tidbits, and updates on new episodes.

I'm so glad you're part of this adventure with us!

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Angela Odell, and you are listening to Real Cool History for Kids, a podcast show featuring history told from a distinctly biblical worldview perspective.
0:23.4	Welcome to an adventure.
0:43.5	Welcome to episode 178 of Real Cool History for Kids. This episode is for Emily Murrah, who wanted to hear the story of the Panama Canal.
0:51.8	Okay, you guys, before we even start our story, I want you to grab your world map or globe, if at all possible.
0:56.9	The geography of this story is one of the most important parts of it.
1:04.0	Throughout this episode, it would be awesome if you had your map so you can see where we are talking about. Okay. First, let's find Central America. Find North America where the United States is, and then slide your finger down to the continent of South America.
1:18.5	Now look at that land that connects those two big continents.
1:23.3	Do you see Panama?
1:25.7	It's the first Central American country right above South America.
1:31.8	Now look really, really closely until you see Panama City.
1:36.6	You should be able to see what looks like a river connecting the Pacific Ocean with the Caribbean Sea. Okay, look very closely. It's not very big
1:47.9	on the map. That's the Panama Canal. It's a man-made waterway. The Panama Canal may look
1:55.8	small on a map, you guys, but it is one of the most amazing, the most, the greatest engineering projects
2:04.4	in the entire history of the world. Okay. It is amazing. It is such a great story. So before the
2:11.9	canal existed, ships had to travel all the way around the bottom of South America to get from one ocean to the other.
2:21.1	Look how far that is.
2:22.4	Go all the way down the side of South America, down to the tip.
2:26.4	That long trip could take weeks more than a journey through Panama.
2:33.0	That meant the canal had the power to dramatically change
2:39.1	this journey for shipping. Imagine you are the captain of a ship loaded with bananas and coffee,
2:47.5	mail, machinery, or other supplies. You are trying to get from New York all the way to
2:55.3	San Francisco or from Europe to the western coast of the Americas. Look how long that journey is when you have to go all the way down and around South America. Without a canal, you would have to sail thousands and thousands of extra miles around a very dangerous place down there called Cape Horn. It's way down there at the southern tip of South
	...

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