The Panama Canal
A continent is cut through, after mosquito control makes it survivable.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 10 years
- Known to
- ± 1 year
- Era
- Industrial, Holocene
The French attempt collapses in the 1880s with over 20,000 deaths, mostly from yellow fever and malaria. The American effort from 1904 succeeds largely because Gorgas applies the new understanding that mosquitoes transmit both diseases, and drains and fumigates the zone. The canal opens in 1914. The United States engineered Panama's secession from Colombia in 1903 to obtain the terms it wanted.