The century of the Panama Canal

The Panama Canal boosted the US as a world power in trade, engineering, and finance

The effort proved the US could achieve grand engineering projects while granting it influence over (and benefitting economically from) a major interoceanic channel and its host country, Panama.

Before the Panama Canal, there was the Panama railroad

The first ship to cross the isthmus of Panama went not by sea but by land: The paddlewheel steamship Explorer was taken apart and transported by rail, an effort that generated “more trouble than profit,” according to one account.

Watch a ship pass through the Panama Canal

Many of the world’s cargo ships are built to be as large as possible while still being able to fit through the Panama Canal’s narrowest locks. The size standard even has a name: Panamax (and, since the canal’s expansion in 2016, Neopanamax). To avoid running against the canal walls, locomotives hold the vessels in place as the chambers are filled and emptied.

The US finished what the French had started with Panama's canal

For about two decades, Suez Canal-builder and Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps led the project, but financial troubles forced it into the hands of the US, who completed it in 1914. This timeline, made to accompany the definitive PBS American Experience documentary about the canal, highlights major moments in its construction.

Drought conditions force fewer ships to sail the Panama Canal daily

In 2023, canal authorities reduced traffic in the canal amid severely dry conditions. These seven infographics from the Woodwell Climate Research Center explain exactly what happened that historically dry October, and how it affected global supply chains.

Nearly all American skilled workers deserted the canal worksite the first year

More than 75,000 workers labored to build the Panama Canal, and up to a third of them, by some estimates, died on the job. This gallery of 16 archival black-and-white photographs from PBS shows what life was like for the workers.

The US handed control of the canal back to Panama in 1999

This was the result of two treaties signed during President Jimmy Carter's presidency, one shifting control to Panama and the other declaring the canal zone neutral. In recent years, US officials have suggested the US may retake control. Experts agree that the only viable way would be through military force.

The canal project required the forced removal of local inhabitants

The canal displaced Panamanian communities, with towns like Gatun and Gorgona dismantled and farmlands lost, reshaping the region forever.

The canal became the first use of lock-and-lake system at a massive scale

The system centered around Gatun Lake, the largest human-made reservoir at the time, and two massive concrete locks that helped raise the ships 85 feet from sea level to the lake surface. The excavation was also the largest earth-moving project at the time, moving 240 million cubic yards of soil.

The canal became a highway for American reform movements

Beyond goods, the canal carried ideas. Its corridor hosted Second Great Awakening revivals and became a center for activism—fueling abolitionist networks, women’s suffrage organizing, and other reform movements.

Around 380 underwater cables power the Internet across the world.

On July 29, 1858, two steam-powered battleships met in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. There, they connected two ends of a 4,000 kilometer (2,500 mile) long, 1.5 centimeter (0.6 inch) wide cable, linking for the first time the European and North American continents by telegraph.

Mapping the route options between the Pacific and Atlantic

This map shows some of the alternative trade route options that are available to shipping companies, from overland routes that rely on railways to transport goods coast-to-coast, to Arctic Ocean passages.

Reflections on the Erie Canal’s 200-year history

Reflections on the Erie Canal traces the waterway from its 1825 opening to its evolving role today. Each short video in this 10-part series explores a different aspect of the canal and its legacy today.

How the Golden Gate Bridge was constructed

San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge is one of America's most iconic structures and is considered to be an engineering marvel. Built in 1930's, before the advent of modern construction technology, the structure was considered impossible by contemporary standards.

The wild, early history of the tunnel across the English Channel

Britain and France today are connected by the Chunnel—a tunnel bored roughly 120 feet under the seabed of the notoriously choppy English Channel, which opened in 1994. The dream of integrating Britain with the rest of the continent this way began much earlier, with daring, physically impossible plans proposed as early as the 19th century. Check out the earliest plans here.

Engineering the Overseas Highway connecting the Florida Keys

A 113-mile series of bridges called the Overseas Highway connects Key West—the southernmost point of the United States—to mainland Florida. The route originally served as a railroad but has required regular reconstruction due to major storms. This video traces the history of the project in fascinating detail.

One in five 16th century Spanish ships sank while crossing the Atlantic

Despite the incredibly high rate of catastrophic wrecks, during the Age of Exploration Spanish investors continued to fund voyages. Here, economists break down the incentives that led to increased risk, including short travel seasons and the propensity to overload ships.

250 years of world trade history

Adam Smith’s revolutionary ideas about free trade were often ignored throughout American history to protect domestic industry—until World War II caused a shift in sentiment about global trade.

How salt, sunlight, and wind drive ocean currents

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation plays a critical role in regulating earth's climate, but is threatened by climate change. Explore the effects of temperature, density, and salinity on ocean currents in this 13-minute PBS video.

What was the Great Inca Road?

In little more than 100 years, it grew from a small kingdom in the highlands of Peru to become the largest empire in the Americas. Read about the critical role played by the Great Inca Road.

Search this digital archive of 19th-century "panoramic" maps of US and Canadian cities

The panoramic map was a popular cartographic form used to depict U.S. and Canadian cities and towns during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. You can peruse a gallery of almost 2,000 of them in this digital archive from the Library...

The evolution of Mexico City, from the Aztecs to today

The sprawling modern city situated in the Valley of Mexico began a millennium ago as an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco, connected to land through a series of causeways. Learn how the Aztecs built Tenochtitlan, how the Spaniards conquered it, why the lake disappeared, and more with this visually rich history and geography of a city of 9 million people.

100 years of passenger air travel: a visual guide

This interactive timeline covers the first 100 years of passenger air travel, which was created in 1925 when the U.S. Post Office allowed private airlines to start delivering mail.

As of 2025, the world's largest tropical cyclone spanned half the continental US

Typhoon Tip traveled across the western Pacific Ocean in 1979, achieving winds of 300 kilometers per hour. Though it weakened significantly before making landfall in Japan, its rainfall produced over 600 mudslides and killed 42 people.

Hear about the 250-year history of the United States Postal Service, complete with some of its strangest deliveries, important innovations, and the figures that made it an American institution.

The 1992 Olympics changed Barcelona

Barcelona wasn’t always a global tourist hotspot. Before hosting the 1992 Olympics, the city’s coastline was blocked by factories, green spaces were scarce, and tourism was minimal. But after securing the Olympic games, everything changed.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

In 1915, workers recovered a submarine-like vessel from the Chicago River, prompting fears of German espionage

Waves off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal, can reach over 100 feet and are caused by the area's deep underwater canyon geography

Explore the history, structure, and species of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with this interactive journey narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

The United States has had a tumultuous relationship with Cuba since its 1959 revolution, highlighted by a nuclear crisis and a decades-long trade embargo.

The power and influence of the American presidency have expanded significantly over time—far beyond what the founders envisioned.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

Hurricanes, which rely on air consistently spinning in the same direction, cannot cross the equator because air curves in opposite directions north and south of it.

The US first hosted the World Cup in 1994, a tournament that lives in soccer infamy for its poor planning and the murder of Colombian player Andres Escobar, who'd accidentally scored on his own net.

El Niño, Spanish for 'the boy,' was named after Jesus Christ because the phenomenon resembled the weather changes observed around Christmastime.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

Quincy Jones' 'Big Band Bossa Nova' helped introduce bossa nova—a jazz-influenced Brazilian genre—to the US

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

The American cockroach is actually from Africa, an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people, with evidence suggesting the bug may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s.

See how Ebola tore through Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia in 2014-2016.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight