Parting the Desert Between Two Seas
HISTORY This Week
The HISTORY® Channel | Back Pocket Studios
4.5 • 4.2K Ratings
🗓️ 27 April 2026
⏱️ 35 minutes
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Summary
April 25, 1859. About 150 people have gathered on the shores of Lake Manzala in Egypt. And one of them, a mustachioed, retired French diplomat, steps forward. He raises his pickaxe and strikes a ceremonial blow.
The audacious goal is to cut through the desert to connect the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, creating a new trade route between the East and the West. Changing global trade and geopolitics forever. Today: the Suez Canal. Why did the tremendous efforts of a Frenchman end up enriching the British Empire? And how, decades later, did the canal play an unexpected role in the birth of modern Egypt?
Thank you to our guests, Ibrahim El-Houdaiby and Professor Aaron Jakes, for speaking with us for this episode. Thank you also to Dr. Bella Galil for talking with us. If you want to read more about the Suez Canal, Zachary Karabell's Parting the Desert: The Creation of the Suez Canal is a great resource.
** This episode originally aired April 25, 2022.
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| 0:57.4 | History this week, April 25th, 1859. |
| 1:03.3 | I'm Sally Helm. |
| 1:08.5 | Dawn on the shores of Lake Manzala. |
| 1:11.5 | It's a shallow lake in the Nile Delta, maybe more of a lagoon. |
| 1:16.2 | There are a couple of villages clustered around it, some nearby fishing shacks. |
| 1:20.6 | And this morning, there's an extra camp on the thin strip of land between this lake and the vast Mediterranean Sea. |
| 1:28.2 | The men there have awoken early and are packing their gear onto camels, shovels, and |
| 1:33.0 | pickaxes. |
| 1:35.3 | Because they're here to carve a new water route in this corner of the desert, one that |
| 1:40.2 | today helps move an estimated 12% of all global trade, the Suez Canal. |
| 1:49.4 | The men and their camels travel to a specific spot nearby. It's marked out by stakes in the |
| 1:55.2 | ground. Pretty soon there's a crowd gathered here, about 150 people. |
| 2:05.3 | And one of them, a mustachioed, retired French diplomat, steps forward. |
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