How To Shrink The World

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1 - CREATE A COUNTRY

Panama was a province of Colombia when Theodore Roosevelt took up the idea of building a canal after a failed attempt by France. When the Colombian government rejected a new treaty allowing the U.S. to build a canal, Roosevelt became enraged. Soon after, a group of Panamanian separatist leaders declared a revolution. That same day, U.S. gunboats appeared off the coast to keep Colombia from reclaiming its territory. Roosevelt vigorously denied that the U.S. had fomented the revolution but defended his actions in characteristic terms: "To have acted otherwise ... would have been betrayal of the interests of the United States."

2 - GET THE BUGS OUT

The rain forests and squalid towns of Panama were rife with diseases like malaria and yellow fever. As many as 20,000 people died during the French effort to build a canal in the late 1800s. But as a result of his work in Cuba after the Spanish-American War, a tireless American doctor named William Gorgas came to believe strongly in the new discovery that a specific mosquito spread yellow fever. Overcoming doubters, he began a widespread campaign of mosquito eradication and sanitation improvements. The death rate among canal workers plummeted

3 - CONSOLIDATE POWER

Initially, Congress created a seven-person commission to oversee construction. After the first chief engineer broke down under the stress of the job, Roosevelt sidestepped the panel and gave total power to one man, Army Colonel George Goethals. As absolute ruler of the Canal Zone, Goethals oversaw every detail, from digging and building to resolving personal disputes among workers.

4 - MAKE THE DIRT FLY

At first, the Americans pursued the failed French dream: a sea-level passage through the mountains and jungles. In 1906 that plan was overruled in favor of damming the Chagres River to create a vast inland lake that could be entered through flights of locks at either end. That still meant cutting an eight-mile trench through the mountains. Every rainy season, mudslides wiped out months of work in a single moment.

5 - RALLY THE TROOPS

In 1906 Roosevelt wanted to see the colossal project for himself. His trip marked the first time a U.S. President left the country while in office. To see conditions at their worst, he went at the height of the rainy season. While touring, he delighted workers by leaping aboard a 95-ton Bucyrus steam shovel and grilling the operator about how it worked. The operator seized the moment to ask for overtime pay.

6 - LOCK AND LOAD

At 1,000 ft. long and 110 ft. wide, the locks were built to handle the largest ships then planned. Even though many modern ships are too big (the Titanic would have fit; today's Queen Mary 2 doesn't), the canal handled more than 14,000 transits in 2005, accounting for about 5% of world trade. How a lock works:

•Ship enters first lock from ocean --Culvert --Lock 1 --Lock 2 --Miraflores Lake •Water from Miraflores Lake enters first lock through culvert system, elevating ship to level of second lock •Ship pulls into second lock; gates close behind it •Water from MirafloresLake enters second lock, elevating ship to lake level •Ship moves into Miraflores Lake, proceeds through canal to next locks