Pins matching tag:Canal

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.

The Panama Canal opened to commercial traffic on 15 August 1914 when the Panama Railroad steamer SS Ancon made the first official transit. The outbreak of World War I cancelled the planned grand celebration.

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.

On 7 September 1977 US President Jimmy Carter and Panama's General Omar Torrijos signed two treaties in Washington that replaced the 1903 canal treaty and promised Panama control of the canal at the end of the century.

At noon on 31 December 1999 the Panama Canal and all former Canal Zone land came under Panama's exclusive control, as the Torrijos-Carter Treaties required. The Panama Canal Authority took over running 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.

On 30 October 2023 the Panama Canal Authority announced a staged cut in daily transits after the driest October on record, the first time the canal had ever restricted transits. It was later softened but queues of ships built up for weeks.

In his 20 January 2025 inaugural address President Trump said China was operating the Panama Canal and 'we're taking it back'. Panama's president rejected the claim within hours.

On 28 September 2026 the Panama Canal Authority said it will raise daily Neopanamax transits from nine to 10, for 33 slots in total, from 15 October. It also raised the maximum Neopanamax draft to 14.94 metres, citing better rainfall and Gatun Lake projections.