Panama Canal - Who Built It?

Canal construction has spanned history: Mesopotamia and India had the oldest canals for irrigation, circa 3,000 B.C.; China's Grand Canal, begun in the 5th century B.C., is almost 1,100 miles, linking the Yellow River and the Yangtze River, being the longest canal in the world; Greeks engineered canals, circa 400 B.C.; Romans built an enormous system of canals, pipes, tunnels, aqueducts and bridges, 312 B.C.-226 A.D. ... continue reading ... Download as PDF ...

MIRACULOUS MILESTONES in Science, Medicine & Innovation - And the Faith of Those Who Achieved Them

Notable European canals include: Charlemagne oversaw in 793 A.D. the first artificial canal in Western Europe at Fossa Carolina, from the Rhine River basin to the Danube River basin; Britain's Glastonbury Canal was built in the 10th century; Italy's Naviglio Canal, from the Ticino River to Milan, took over a century to complete, 1157-1258; England's Exeter Canal was constructed in the 1560s; Netherlands, Flanders and Belgium constructed a dense system of canals, mostly in the 1600s; France's Canal de Briare, connecting the Loire and Seine Valleys, was completed in 1642; Germany built canals in the 18th century, on the rivers Spree, Elbe, Havel, Ems, Elster, Dahme, Oder, and Weser;

Russia's canals were pioneered by Peter the Great, who built the Vyshny Volochyok Waterway, 1703-1722, connecting Saint Petersburg with the Baltic Sea, and later expanded in the 19th century to the White Sea.

Some early canals in the United States included: Cut River, 1636, connecting Plymouth Harbor with Marshfield on Green Harbor; South Hadley Canal, opened in 1795, bypassing Great Falls at South Hadley, Massachusetts, on the Connecticut River; Santee Canal, opened in 1800, 22 miles between Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina; Dismal Swamp Canal, opened in 1805, 22 miles between Virginia and North Carolina;

Erie Canal, opened in 1825, was 363 miles from Albany, New York, on the Hudson River, to Buffalo on Lake Erie. At the time, it was the second longest canal in the world after China's Grand Canal.

Wabash and Erie Canal, opened in 1843, was 497 miles, the longest canal in North America. It connected the Great Lakes to the Ohio River, which then flowed into the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. Idaho Irrigation Canals, begun by the Milner and Minidoka Dams along the Snake River, 1906-1910, quickly transformed the sagebrush landscape, once crossed by settlers on the California and Oregon Trails, into a fertile agricultural "Magic Valley." Together with canals along the Boise River, Idaho produces one-third of the nation's potatoes.