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The Panama Canal

Added Jul 15, 2021 •

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welcome to the world of arts and entertainment here on A & D home video early explorers feared that the very edge of the world lay in the uncharted waters of the Atlantic it was a great Abyss that was swallow ships whole plunging men into a living of nightmares and Mythic monsters so when Columbus stumbled onto the new world when he came to places like Panama in 1502 he was surprised to discover seeming Paradise seeming Paradise but in a way the old stories were true were there were monsters in this paradise they were frustration disease and Broken Dreams and conquering those would be one of the greatest achievements of the 20th century It Started With The Incredibles challenging the planet's Natural Balance by linking the two greatest oceans on Earth the slice a Waterway across the Continental Divide of Panama and bypass the navigational Gauntlet of South America it was more at stake than improved shipping lanes this would be mother nature's Last Stand people would have to declare dominion over the very form and function of the land it was the most important engineering project of its time in Valle in the largest Earthen dam ever built the largest man-made lake ever created the Epic effort was accomplished only through the grueling labor of a hundred thousand workers gripped by the inventions of powerful men enjoyed Breaking All the Rules in the end it would cost billions of dollars and playing thousands of lives the Panama Canal in the world still Ponders the profound implications of this Modern Marvel Panama has always attracted explorers and adventurers in 1534 Spanish Engineers surveyed the Isthmus and proposed a plan for a canal that would link the Atlantic and Pacific Goshen it was a bold idea that was quickly discarded the jungle was to dance the weather to oppress him the task doing normous for the limited technology of the time but I see you have been planted imagination of explorers which would bear bitter fruit for the next three and a half centuries ambitious projects demand ambitious men there was nothing Meek about Ferdinand de lesseps celebrated entrepreneur who promoted the French effort to carve the 105 Mi Suez Canal in 1869 celebrated success in the Middle East was a pride of France so 10 years later when he Focus I'm building a canal to spend the 50 mile with the Panama there was no doubt that he would have Jen succeed but there were two problems with his plan one de lesseps was a great promoter not the great engineer to hehe ever been to Panama unlike the Suez Panama was a Savage tropical terrain a swampy overgrown land that would not easily been that to the will of man but with the support of the French people in billions of dollars in investment Capital do men began their nine-year exercise in futility problems began to get late due to an 8-month rainy season the jungle grows at an astounding rate with razor-sharp grasses and ferns which easily cut through the skin this all had to be cleared by hand and the jungle was home to a Savage variety of insects spiders takes mosquitoes poisonous snakes the French engineers in their laborers from local Caribbean islands were dying in Rapid fashion 25% of all workers whether the hospital for treatment of smallpox typhoid yellow fever food poisoning or snake bite died painfully prematurely most illness was blamed on malaria which the French believed was caused by a deadly Vapors seeping from the rotting jungle despite solid medical evidence the French refused to accept the fact that many tropical diseases are primarily by mosquitoes delesseps and the French and the will but not the way their plan to carve a sea-level canal and never been practical the unstable Earth of the Panamanian mountains is prone to such slides and could never be tamed by the Primitive French construction equipment by 1889 the European has had run out of money they left behind rusting hardware and the corpses of more than 20,000 men those who survived were credited with causing the worst Financial failure of its time a 300 million dollar catastrophe which nearly toppled the French government but the dream of building a pen walking out was not dead every man had a job to do and he was to do it to the best of his ability because our French and we were determined to make a success of building the canal not only for ourselves but for the the United States government and for the president at 104 years of age Robert deal was the last member of the American team that built the Panama Canal when he arrived on the Isthmus in 1911 the canal symbolized America's emergence as a world power and President Theodore Roosevelt was the embodiment of that spirit Teddy's advice was to speak softly and carry a big stick but he never spoke Softly his Mythic image have been forged in 1898 during the Spanish-American War when is assistant Secretary of the Navy he had led the Rough Riders on a bloody charge up San Juan Hill the public a plot of the victor but Teddy was upset that badly needed support from West Coast battleships was not available for his Caribbean campaign he saw an immediate strategic need for a canal that would facilitate Maybe after the fighting said he became vice president on the winning Republican Presidential ticket in 1980 or later when William McKinley was shot to death by an assassin Roosevelt became presidents his first order of business was the Panama Canal newsreels that claimed his early addresses to come that's where he declared as the Panama Canal the Isthmus of Panama what's the northern province of Columbia and Columbia had no interest in granting the US the right to build a canal so Roosevelt encouraged little revolution in 1903 and declared the reach independent the bloodless coup took less than 24 hours and to be certain it wouldn't fail Teddy send u.s. battleships to the Isthmus with orders to shoot down any Colombian effort to keep its territory denied any involvement with the revolution until Relentless questions from reporters provoked him into saying those four words were to prove costly Columbia demanded 25 million dollars from the United States has operations for the illegal seizure but Teddy could finally build his Canal thanks to a hastily drawn agreement in which the United States would give the new nation of Panama ten million dollars for the right to build and operate Safra Continental water weigh no panamanians ever signed that agreement still preparations for building the dam began in 1905 Stevens became the chief engineer of the project I would say that Stevens was really the architect because when we took over the building of the canal in 19 4 I still don't know whether they're going to be a sea-level canal or just what they were going to do Stevens convinced Roosevelt of the plan to Dam Panama's mightiest River and create what was then the world's largest man made lake then use a system of locks to raise and lower ships 85 ft to the level of the lake for their Transit across the Continental Divide but problems still lingered how Stevens protect his Workforce from the ravages of disease which it already claimed 20,000 lives during the French effort the answer was a combination of coming and Common Sense at the turn of the century Panama was a death trap for Robert. It was also an opportunity to forget the past cuz I learned that my fiance had to gone out with one of her former boyfriends and so instead of jumping off of a bridge right then I decided regarding Panama on wreck on the canal I live there now Gaga and the bachelor quarters that were provided by the canal Commission there were two of us in one room and they buildings are built for circulation of air they are activation I might say would be that due to the dampness do they have it at they we would get up in the morning and I open our clothes closet and we'd find that our shoes or full of mold most of the men who built the canal were not Americans assigned the Dubai 4 quarters but tens of thousands of Desperately for workers from impoverished Caribbean islands who were housed under far more primitive living conditions and work for far less money the laborers pay tonight Ascension Day and I'm a old or 9 cents backwaters where provided and the rest of course was after them rather they saved it I spend it well my bypass machinist I think started at about $0.38 an hour and I received for promotions and and a five and a half years there was only one thing equal between the Americans and the massive black labor force the possibility that tropical diseases would claim their lives it was a reality that Roosevelt had faced during the Spanish-American War 13 times of the men that were killed during the battle have died from malaria fever from disease jovanda Teddy Roosevelt no they've had a sanitation problem to solve that the doctors are that's what I said was a man for the job he was the man daftar eradicated are they have malaria fever and typhoid in Cuba he felt that in addition to the health situation we had them streets because some of the streets with drainage ditches and he called off all the work on the canal until they got in the sanitary condition to where the men then could feel free to work that had to be done for drainage ditches were cleaned of standing water where mosquitoes breed swampgrass was trimmed to allow small fish to Feast on the insect larvae ponds in puddles were sprayed with a film of oil to kill newly hatched insects living quarters were fumigating and the insect screens were attached to Windows as a good environment was being controlled massive shipments of Sanitation materials arrive 120 tons of insecticide 8,000 lb of soap thousands of buckets brooms and rakes in a few months the man that accomplished The Impossible my Christmas 1905 yellow fever had been eliminated in Panama did not come cheaply every mosquito killed cops the United States government powers of the government would even further to protect the workers the men were prescribed regular rations of quinine they would have a man with liquid quinine a person that read. go around to the shops The Gangs wherever there was activity and then working and you would take they required amount of liquid by 9 but quinine was distributed to workers in a racially segregated way American men were labeled as gold employees and the black Caribbean laborers silver employees and a dog would drink out of the Gold Cup of me and then out of when Canal construction begin full force new dangers surfaced the hardest work was in the Culebra cut or whole mountains were removed to carve a path 8 miles long 300 feet wide 50 ft deep Gorge would later be filled with the Cool Waters Dam from the chongris river until then the men worked in 120 degree temperatures to Blast Away sliding Hillside send  200 trainloads of Earth every day 5260 steam shovels were operating at any one time in a choreographed dance with nonstop locomotives they steam shower would come up for the Lord and I visit Megalodon and the train has moved far enough then to head for a to put the second differ that and otherwise there was no loss motion oh by the steam showers special dumping devices allowed the trains to be unloaded with one giant sweep depositing millions of tons of soil to create a huge Earthen Dam one and a half miles long I have my thick at the base it would take that much volume to hold back the water of the huge man-made lake meanwhile in the cot 61 million pounds of dynamite was the primary tool for moving Earth the explosive force was equal to all the Firepower used in all the wars the United States had fought up until that time all from the heat would make the dynamite unstable it would explode unpredictably a sudden blast killed twenty-seven men in a single blinding instant other workers were killed or injured by flying debris rules were as regular as rain sometimes the blast sparked deadly fires a Panamanian fire department was formed to respond what was largely untrained in the techniques of fighting fires play Panamanian fire department and said they're going around you know I'm fighting a back that they that's followed with it and when it exploded I think they were six or seven fireman that but that's blown to bits it was not uncommon for workers to be ground under the wheels of the speeding trains caught unaware due to the deafening noise at the site but Teddy Roosevelt was pleased with the progress the American effort was digging in a single day what the french had taken a month to match in 1906 Roosevelt decided to see the work for himself and arrived in Panama for an inspection tour the first time in history a president had left the United States while in office and the first time a world leader at ever pose for photos in the seat of a steam shovel which was the worst month of a rainy season when he saw the conditions under which the men were working their sincerity their determination to get the job done he felt that they should have a pen or the badge or something so he had French junk sent to the Philadelphia mint 11 / 7400 Citrus truck and were given to those who have served two years or more I doing the construction days the metals Struck from the steel of discarded French equipment featured a cameo of Roosevelt my Meadow number 6726 there's a lot of history between level 1 and 6 to 7:26 the water way through the Panamanian mountains was a Monumental feat but that was only part of the construction process the locks which would lift and lower ships from the elevated Canal would equal a mammoth structures their jobs me to raise the world's largest ships for the height of a seven-story building building 36 foot sections they were the largest concrete structures on earth a thousand feet long a hundred and ten feet wide each of the six she could hold an object the size of the Eiffel Tower they were designed to fill with water rushed in from the lake through pipes the size of railroad tunnels with two valves weighing 10 tonnes each even though lock doors weighed 700 tons it was so perfectly balanced that they're opening and closing required only the power of a 40 horsepower motor the same power used by many industrial lawn mowers The Lox operated who's the lady from electricity a radical new technology for the time and their power was to be generated by got tuned am a 1 and 1/2 Mile longer that barrier made from the soil of the Culebra cut because of the enormous volume of water in the man-made lake the dam is designed to process in a single day the water equivalent of to Niagara Falls the Panama Canal represents the perfect balance between technology and work dreams and determination it was born of a unique convergence of men might and money which defined a defiant age I think I should mention what it meant to work on the Panama Canal and they actual experience of working together the weather weather closeness that you're never found that you're alone and if you are working with a group if for some reason one man fell out what in there was others right there to take on his part there was no such thing as saying well that's his job is an hour job the Epic nature of the Panama Canal Inspire the spirit of camaraderie among the workers but the project could test the strongest of men in February of 1907 for personal who is chief engineer John Stephens resigned his post and left Panama it dishearten the cruise but it enraged the president President Roosevelt was shot on the point again mule man to head the effort could not leave his post that man was George Washington Goethals he was regular military demanding authoritative and best of all if he tried to quit he could be court-martialed and sent to prison every day was a work day and of course Sunday we were all supposed to observe the Sabbath but there's always Trish I work to be done that couldn't wait for Monday the military regimen push the project over the top in the end 12 million cubic yards of concrete we're set in the locks and enough dirt was hauled from the car cut to equal 3 1/2 times the volume of the Suez Canal on May 20th 1913 Joseph Kirk and shovel 222 met DJ McDonald in trouble 2:30 at the bottom of the excavation the digging was done the canal was prepared to be filled four months later workers place the final dynamite in a small Dyke that held back the childbirth River we were very very proud to be a success and when the canal was completed and when they blew up the dark after I gamble or why it's never forget they apply Chardon Ohio State wrestling in the yelling and all that everyone made that wrote standing on the banks of the canal when the guy was blown up the Water started flowing the locks were filled and when the level had risen a tugboat was draped in flags and sent to make the first trip through the greatest engineering accomplishment of its time thousands cheer the Triumph but the cheering did not last long by the time the steamship Ancona fish Ali open Canal operations on August 15th 1914 10 years after the work has begun the story of the Panama Canal was buried on the back pages of newspapers because just days before your a pet erupted in war at First America was the term stay out of the conflict instead of fighting we put on a stair the spectacular Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco celebrating the Ingenuity magnificence of America and the canal and marking the emergence of the United States as a cultural and technological world power but the rest of the world didn't have time to celebrate United States finally entered the war and with the should you put Pacific Fleet through the canal in 1919 Teddy Roosevelt's dream of a two-ocean Navy became a reality but said he never lived to see the triumph he had died a few months early after the war the United States disassembled a third of its battleships in the collective cause of World Peace the Navy's use of the canal dropped off at a worldwide Depression was having a impact on the canal as well there were periods of time traffic became so slow solo so minimal that there were layoffs and I recall once. My father was working two different jobs if they were laid off they would have to go back to the States and what movie do their stand on street corners selling apples and pencils George Mueller and John Murray Ridge. and our Canal brats children of Canal workers who lived in the American Zone and often grew up to join the workforce themselves against the backdrop of Panama they developed their own way of making it through the depression these men pull together and they decided that they would work maybe one or two weeks a month and that person could work one or two weeks a month and that way they could keep their housing and still have a job but why basic Canal construction finished and most of the workers ship back home the American presence in Panama became a military one a strong defense of the canal would become an important asset as the world grew more Restless December 7th 1941 once again Warhead erupted and once again see Power would be a determining Factor the Panama Canal would be a vulnerable lynchpin in the Allied effort Franklin Delano Roosevelt concerned about Panama strategic value exposed Nazi designs on the Waterway America into 5 safe bring up. And they have also arranged at the territory of one of these new puppet States Republic of Panama and I have a great life line the Panama Canal that is his plan it will never go into effect in April 1941 the US Coast Guard seized several acts of ships to prevent the widespread Nazi sabotage plot which included the scuffling of vessels in the canal the fair was rooted in reality for Germany in conquering gets weaker European Neighbours had gained control of some of their colonial footholds in the western hemisphere is put the canal within range of Air Attack to protect against attack and sabotage the canal Institute of the top secret program called ship7 an emergency  method in which an underwater blockade could be lifted hydraulically the hold back the Raging Waters of God like if the doors of the locks were hit by Nazi bombs should a gate be damaged buy some wartime activity they could easily lose all the water in and got to the lake and that was one of their their concerns it could be activated in minutes even my hand if all electricity were cut off S I P 7 prove to be an integral part of America's wartime defense but the canal have another unusual influence on the war effort around the globe American fighting man was suddenly encountering rare tropical diseases was now talk to Gianni's through educational cartoons this is the story of an outcast to look at me now you wouldn't hardly believe it but back in the good old days are you ready for some stop yeah I took my drink straight but the boys got that has mixed with a Mickey Finn as a facility and as a symbol of a nation's might the Panama Canal had established its importance Sweat and Tears. I would say 10 invested in the Ten Mile Strip Panama still belong to the panamanians there was an enforced segregation between the Americans and the Panamanian people living in the Canal Zone you are expected to be out of the Canal Zone after dark and using unless you had business how many of us had domestic servants and they could stay several hours after Sunset and they would not be challenged as they were returning to their own homes in Panama who are coming back into the Zone in the early morning hours one thing about the Canal Zone the restaurant employees the parents that is with their families returned to the states periodically the idea of being that he wanted the family to remain Americanized residential seemingly too much is a pound of culture to the extent that they would forget their identity As Americans Oconomowoc grew into the twentieth century Panamanian nationalism increased in 1964 the United States refused to allow the Panamanian Flag to be raised alongside the US flag in the Canal Zone and rage citizens took their anger to the streets in a violent Riot that claimed the lives of 22 Panamanian and for US soldiers and injured more 350 people many in the US blamed a subversive communist element for in flaming the panamanians but the Panamanian government didn't agree that nationalism was subversive and immediately severed diplomatic relations with the United States the organization of American states called an emergency meeting to urge negotiation in France exercise jurisdiction over swap land 10 MI applied along the banks of the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Canada nothing in the 1903 3D or its amendments indicates that Panama ever ceded the Canal Zone to the United Johnson promised to renegotiate the Treaty of 19 free and recognized the sovereignty of the Isthmus that was the first stage in a process that would eventually turn control of the water way over to the country I have been created so the Panama Canal could be built the economic advantages of the Panama Canal obvious it's Unique geography facilitates trade with a direct water link between Europe and the Pacific and friend was nearly eight thousand miles off the shipping route between New York and San Francisco the engineering behind this Modern Marvel is ingenious and the transit of ships a masterpiece of choreography the route begins on me that the Atlantic or Pacific French or vessels make their request to Canal traffic control for permission to pass through the locks blocks are double-sided permitting traffic to flow in either or both directions at once experience Canal Pilots board the ships to navigate them through the narrow waterways helped into the locks themselves by special electric locomotives called mules Which pull the ships into the chambers except for the opening and closing of the massive lock doors and the toy ships into the lock Chambers the entire raising and lowering operation works from Gravity Panama's jungles receive a hundred inches of rainfall each year and flush billions of pounds of water from the high regions of the car metal divide to the Atlantic and Pacific how's the water fills the lock Chambers on its way to the Sea ships float on its surface and Rise without mechanical assistance what is mind-boggling about the operation is it's overwhelming size which can best be appreciated when the locks are drained for maintenance repair and upkeep turn on going to man with over 100 million dollars spent in the last 10 years on improvements the difficult and work is accomplished in largely the same fashion as in 1915 a human touch is required on every square inch of The Lox the lock Chambers are massive their length longer than three regulation football fields their vows the equivalent of nearly 500 school buses for space shuttles could be parked within each of the lofts Wendy's giant Chambers were first design they could easily accommodate three ocean-worthy vessels at a time today shipbuilders base the dimensions of their panamax cargo ships so that one enormous crafts and perfectly match the Contours of the law once through the locks shipped under the man-made got to Lake formed by the Waters of the chagres river the lake also contains hundreds of tiny islands with ecological Micro Systems which are natural Laboratories for valuable research by University but the lake does not send from one coast of the other the Culebra cut the Enders for 9 miles through the mountains of the Continental Divide to link the system carving this piece of the puzzle was the deadliest part of the canal construction as unstable Avalanche into the work area to bury men and equipment even today the most intensive Canal maintenance efforts are focused on the treacherous Culebra cut change its original construction this channel has been widened from 300 to 500 feet to allow passage of wider modern vessels more Earth has been removed in this explosive process of Wyden then was excavated originally to build the canal the enormity of contemporary ships contributes to the erosion of the canals narrow Banks is the training of their giant propellers scour the canals shallow base dislodging silt more than 500 men labor 365 days a year in a constant dredging operation through the two and a half million cubic yards of soil each year the sludge is pumped Inland to drain and dry but the Panamanian weather often sabotages that effort at 9 Breeze above the equator the Tropical Sun bakes a thin crust on the surface of the soil keeping the thick gluttonous soup protected underneath unable to drain during the rainy season water collect in the cracks in comes a breeding ground for disease carrying mosquitoes these crust must routinely be broken for drainage but the weight of men and Equipment would easily cracked the surface and cause them to be sucked into the slime the solution is called explosive ditching a process in which men Race Across the pits to deposit Dynamite charges then Blast Away channels in the crust to allow standing water to drain back into the canal the results are immediate Blaster monitored with special high-speed cameras so the shock waves from the explosions can be measured from a safe distance and studied as in the original construction of the canal a massive full-time crew of more than 8,000 people are constantly black digging and dredging to maintain the canal a project like the Panama Canal can no longer be built in Factory mind-boggling to assume that that project get through all the environmental hurdles that are necessary in order to have a project like that proposed circulated and built to watch a completion Teddy Roosevelt bully the Panama Canal into existence he didn't have to contend with the legal challenges which would today prevent the first shuttle from every breaking Earth in that since the car was the last hurrah for the kind of ambitious project which would dare to change the shape of the world yet the Waterway has found a permanent place in the imagination of man over half a million ships that made the nine-hour voyage from sea to Sea over the Continental Divide spend Panama Canal the operation is funded by tolls for using the locks ranging from $142,000 for Majestic cruise ships. 8 cents for wandering man who swam the distance but the real value of the canal cannot be measured in dollars depending on Canal is a working Monument to man's nature at times stubborn and harsh but always longing for greatness and cradled in Bittersweet Glory as we pass through the canal during the day we get to a spot which is the deepest copters call again I'll cut and that was the scene of the biggest digging and the cross biggest casualties while they were digging through and as we go through this a big pack on the side of the hill to commemorate the lives of a lost dream the thousands of workers who sacrificed their lives when this narrow sliver of land was wrenched from nature we're also building connections between men and eating a door which would lead the world in the 20th century is the most important part of my education I learned things that cannot be written show me if you can learn from textbooks and I don't want to continue you must participate and observe and working with people I wish now I had stayed but that's another story think back to the most important time of your life I'll bet the people standing next to you made it special family and friends spending time with them both our lives hey daddy takes you beyond your circle in into the lives of people all over the world spend your time with great performers great leaders and is your ticket to a world of you people so after you spend some time with your people spend some time with hours it's time well spent

Uploaded by Ernesto Villarreal.

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The Panama Canal

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