Ever since the lands of the New World were mapped, people dreamt of creating a canal through Central America to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

For almost 400 years, that dream was just that, a dream.

Creating such a canal would require one of the greatest engineering projects in human history.

But it was finally achieved in the early 20th century, with an enormous amount of machinery, money, human lives, and a whole lot of political arm twisting.

Learn more about the Panama Canal and how it came to be on this episode of Everything

Everywhere Daily. daily. Anyone who has ever looked at a map of the Western Hemisphere can immediately see the

value of a canal going through Central America.

North and South America collectively extend 14.6,000 kilometers

or 9,000 miles from the Arctic Ocean down to Cape Horn.

It is a massive continental-sized roadblock for anyone who wants

to sail between Asia and Europe or for anyone wanting to sail from the east to west coast

of the Americas. The first idea for a canal to cross the isthmus of Panama

dates back only 25 years after Columbus arrived in the New World.

In 1517, Vosko de Balboa crossed the Isthmus from the Atlantic to the Pacific and found out just

how small the distance was between the two oceans.

In 1534, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V ordered a survey to be conducted for the construction of a canal.

His intent was to reduce the distance required to sail to Peru.

The problem wasn't the distance per se.

It was the fact that a mountain range ran through the middle

of the isthmus. The ideal of a canal through Panama never went away over the centuries.

There were always ideas floating around about creating a canal.

As trade and shipping increased, the need for such a canal became greater and greater.

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