The Panama Canal is one of the most spectacular and illuminating structures made by humans. This canal helped to bring two worlds together.
Before the canal idea was thought about, many people wanted an easier way to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and vice versa. This canal portrayed a much greater use than travel or trade.
North America and South America are thought to be connected, hence the name north and south. But in reality now a day, we are one hundred and ten feet or thirty-four meters apart. Before the canal was built, we were connected without any distance in between us. In the early 1900's, before the canal was built, citizens of the United States or other sailors travelling almost dreaded the idea of travelling by water from New York to California. Because they couldn't go through a canal, they"d have to go all the way down south past Mexico and around South America. Or they could go up north around Canada and by Alaska and take the chance of hitting an iceberg - which does happen in 1912 when the Titanic hit an iceberg. Neither of those choices excited nor amused any of the sailors that had to travel.
After many times travelling north and south around the countries, the United States decided they needed to find a short cut. They came to another conclusion that the country of Panama was the smallest country in width and would be the perfect country to start building a canal through (History).
The country of Panama is located between Costa Rica and Colombia. Because of its size, not many people thought of Panama as a very strong country. It wasn't but it was a known country. You could technically consider thinking of Panama as the "Little Country that could". Panama is known for being small but even though it was small, it has an enormous part in developing political, cultural, and economic bonds with many of it's neighbors, including the United States.
