It's not that difficult to get ensured here immersing in beam of American history. Welll…Smile with face. Smile with MIND. And a lot of times, it'll be a LOT easier with historically full textual study and understanding of its evolution.
Given the strategic location of Panama and the potential offered by its narrow isthmus separating two great oceans, as early as the mid-sixteenth century, interest in a canal acrossthe Central American isthmus began to take root. In 1788, Thomas Jefferson, then Minister to France, suggested that the canal was worthy theattempt. The success of the Erie Canal(伊利運河) in the United States in the 1820s and the collapse of the Spanish Empire in Latin America led to a surge of American interest in building an inter-oceanic canal.
But early proposals won't cover everything that you might need it for...
Early Attempts by French, 1881–1894
The project of a sea-level canal was inspired by the diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps, and with a result of the huge profits generated by his successful construction of the Suez Canal蘇伊士運河(the Panama Canal was only 40% of the length of the Suez Canal), he was able to raise considerable funds. It was much more of an engineering challenge ,however, due to the combination of tropical rain forests, debilitating climate, the need for canal locks, and the lack of any ancient route to follow. Conditions were severely downplayed in France
When the canal started, Frenchmen were totally unprepared for the rainy season and the worst challenges including yellow fever, malaria, and other tropical diseases killed thousands of workers. The French effort went bankrupt in 1889 and construction work was suspended during May. The scandal, known as the Panama affair, ensued.
Teddy Roosevelt’s Use of the 「Big Stick」 to Construct the Panama Canal, 1904–1914
At this time, the President and the Senate of the United States were highly interested in establishing a canal across the isthmus. Though Frenchmen were thwarted by the high mortality rate, the US maneuvers never stopped in Latin America.
While President McKinley ushered in the era of the American empire through military strength and economic coercion, his successor, Theodore Roosevelt, established a new foreign policy approach with the old adage "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far".
Theodore「Teddy」 Roosevelt had firm intention of asserting American influence over Central and South American politics. Initially, construction of adequate housing, cafeterias, warehouses, machineshops, and other elements of infrastructure that previous French efforts had failed to consider were underway. Further introduction of fumigation systems and mosquito nets(煙燻法及蚊帳) reduced the death rate and restored the fledgling morale among workers and supervisors.
In 1906, the President embarked on a 17-day trip to Panama and Puerto Rico, becoming the first president to make an official diplomatic tour outside of the continental United States. The construction of the Panama canal suffered many setbacks, including worker accidents and disease outbreaks. Roosevelt’s tenacious demands for improvements in health care and better working conditions pushed the canal project forward just when it appeared doomed to failure. His trip to the construction site in 1906 helped to boost flagging morale.
「This is one of the greatest works of the world; it is a greater work than you,yourselves, at the moment realize. Some of you, a good many of you, are sons of men who fought in the Civil War. When your fathers were in the fighting, they thought a good deal of the fact that the blankets was too heavy by noon and not quite heavy enough by night; that the pork was not as good as it might be …」
Excited by the work, Roosevelt became the first sitting U.S. president to leave the country while in office.
The American Society of Civil Engineers has ranked the Panama Canal one of the seven wonders of the modern world.
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Roosevelt CorollaryThe canal opened in 1914. In this addition, Roosevelt stated that the United States would use military force 「as an international police power」 to correct any 「chronic wrongdoing」 by any Latin American nation that might threaten stability in the region. Not only did it permanently altered world trade and military defense patterns, but Roosevelt attempted to send a clear message to the rest of the world—and in particular to his European counterparts—that the colonization ofthe Western Hemisphere had now ended, and their interference in the countries there would no longer be tolerated. At the same time, he sent a message to his counterparts in Centra land South America, should the United States see problems erupt in the region, that it would intervene in order to maintain peace and stability throughout the hemisphere.