Geo: 9.17802, -79.9475The Panama Canal is a loch-type canal approximately 80 kilometres long that unites the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at one of the narrowest points of both the Ithmus of Panama and the American Continent. It allows passage through Central America to the Pacific without having to sail 21 days around South America. Its hard to imagine how the French conceived the idea for construction of the canal in the late 1800s. They dug out the foundations, much of it by hand, with minimal technology, in the foreign, wild, inhospitable, unexplored jungle of the Panama. Ultimately, their effort came too soon and failed. Living conditions were poor, and they were unprepared. Thousands died of illness, exhaustion, yellow fever and malaria. The Americans picked up where they left off in the early 1900s. With better technology,
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