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On 25 April 1859 the Suez Canal Company broke ground at what is now Port Said, starting a ten-year dig across the Isthmus of Suez. The Suez Canal Authority says about 20,000 Egyptians took part in the groundbreaking despite objections from Britain and the Ottoman Empire.

The Suez Canal was inaugurated on 17 November 1869, linking the Mediterranean and the Red Sea after ten years of digging. A procession of ships headed by the French imperial yacht L'Aigle, carrying Empress Eugenie, entered the canal at Port Said.

On 26 July 1956 Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser announced the nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company in a broadcast from Alexandria, while Egyptian officials took over its offices. Britain and France were outraged, setting up the Suez Crisis.

Israeli forces attacked across the Sinai Peninsula on 29 October 1956 as part of a secret plan with Britain and France to retake the Suez Canal. British and French landings followed within days, then a UN-backed ceasefire and withdrawal under US pressure.

Egypt closed the Suez Canal on 6 June 1967, the day after the Six-Day War began, and it stayed shut for eight years. Fourteen or fifteen cargo ships caught inside became the 'Yellow Fleet' in the Great Bitter Lake.

President Anwar Sadat reopened the Suez Canal on 5 June 1975, eight years after the Six-Day War closed it. A mine-clearing effort by the US and Britain through 1974 had cleared the waterway.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi opened the expanded Suez Canal on 6 August 2015 at a ceremony in Ismailia, after a year of digging that added 72 kilometres of new waterways. Analysts questioned whether the projected revenue gains were realistic.

The 400-metre container ship Ever Given ran aground across the Suez Canal on 23 March 2021 in high winds and was refloated on 29 March. Hundreds of ships queued while the world's busiest east-west route was shut.

On 15 December 2023 Maersk told ships bound for the Bab al-Mandab to pause after Houthi attacks, and within days it and other lines sent ships around Africa. The diversions cut traffic through the Suez Canal.

On 11 November 2025 Yemen's Houthis signalled in a letter that they had stopped attacking Israel and Red Sea shipping while the Gaza ceasefire holds. Suez Canal traffic stayed far below pre-crisis levels into early 2026.