▲Building the canal required developing a lock system to raise and lower ships from a large reservoir 85 ft (26 m) above sea level. Pictured is one of the locks under construction in 1913.

▲This created both the largest dam (Gatun Dam) and the largest man-made lake (Gatun Lake) in the world at the time.

▲French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps was the inspiration behind the idea to construct the Panama Canal. He was responsible for building the Suez Canal, completed in 1869.

▲Construction advances on the Culebra Cut, as seen in this 1907 photograph. To create the artificial gorge, engineers had to literally cut through the Continental Divide.

▲Pictured is a giant shovel vehicle operating during the construction.

▲Eventually, the money ran out. Work was suspended in 1889, and de Lesseps' dream was over. In 1894, a second French company took over the project to create a lock-and-lake canal. Pictured is the excavation of the artificial gorge known as the Culebra Cut, or Gaillard Cut.

▲President Theodore Roosevelt, on a visit to the site in 1906, is pictured sitting on a steam shovel at Culebra Cut.

▲The canal was formally opened on August 15, 1914 with the passage of the cargo ship SS Ancon (pictured).

▲USS Missouri passes through the canal in 1945. The Iowa-class battleships were designed to be narrow enough to fit through the locks.

▲Pictured is a share coupon of the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique de Panama, issued November 29, 1880, and signed by Ferdinand de Lesseps. He was able to raise substantial funds in France as a result of the huge profits generated by his successful construction of the Suez Canal in Egypt.

▲The risk of landslides was a constant threat. Workers had to continually widen the main cut through the mountain at Culebra and reduce the angles of the slopes to minimize landslides into the canal.

▲John Frank Stevens took over from John Findley Wallace as the project's chief engineer after Findley resigned over the appalling conditions and lack of working equipment.

▲By the 1930s, ships of all sizes, including pleasure craft, were transiting the canal.

▲On October 10, 1913, the Gamboa Dike was deliberately blown up. This flooded the Culebra Cut, thereby joining the Atlantic and Pacific oceans via the Panama Canal. Pictured is the seagoing tug Gatun making a trial run through Gatun Lock.

▲In 1935, the Madden Dam was completed. This created Madden Lake (later Alajeula Lake), which today still provides additional water storage for the canal. Pictured is a view of Panama City and the Panama Canal during that same year.

▲Pictured is the first P&O Orient liner SS Oriana returning to Southampton, England after her maiden voyage to the Panama Canal. This was the largest vessel to pass through the canal since the German liner Bremen in 1938.

▲A super yacht approaches the Miraflores Locks. It takes an average 11.38 hours to pass through the canal.

▲Vessels transiting the canal must pay tolls. Tolls for the canal are set by the Panama Canal Authority, and are based on vessel type, size, and the type of cargo. The average toll is around US$54,000.

▲American intentions to influence the area (especially the Panama Canal construction and control) led to the separation of Panama from Colombia in 1903. The US formally took control of the canal property in May 1904.

▲In 2006, it was anticipated that 37% of the world's container ships would be too large for the present canal by 2011. An expansion of the canal was subsequently carried out between 2007 and 2016.

▲Gorgas, a US Army physician, was appointed the project's chief sanitation officer in 1904. He is credited with considerably reducing the death rate among workers from mosquito-borne diseases.

▲A French railroad steam engine salvaged from the depths of the Panama Canal awaits restoration in Colon City. The locomotive, dating back to the failed French bid to build a canal across Panama during the 1880s, was hauled out of the waterway by workers using a heavy-duty Goliath crane.

▲An aerial view of the Gatun locks on the Atlantic side.

▲The Torrijos–Carter Treaties signed in 1977 by US President Jimmy Carter and General Omar Torrijos of Panama guaranteed that Panama would gain administration of the Panama Canal after 1999. Pictured is the handover on December 31, 1999, which ended the control of the canal that the US had exercised since 1903.

▲Pictured is the Russian destroyer Admiral Chabanenko in transit through the canal. The vessel was the first Russian military ship to cross the canal since WWII.

▲Pictured is the USS Ohio passing through the Panama Canal on July 16, 1915. The ship is passing the Cucaracha Slide in the the eight-mile-long (12.8-km) Culebra Cut.

▲A cruise ship sails under the Bridge of the Americas, which spans the Pacific entrance to the canal. The experience of transiting the famous waterway is a sightseeing highlight.

▲By 1915, numerous boats were using the canal. Here, vessels move through the Culebra Cut, which crosses the Continental Divide.

▲Pictured is the first trial run with a larger Post-Panamax cargo ship in the new sets of locks on the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal in 2016.

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In 1914, annual traffic numbered around 1,000 ships. In 2018, the Panama Canal registered 13,795 transits. Pictured at anchor are cargo ships waiting to navigate the canal.

▲This 1913 image shows workers drilling holes in bedrock for dynamite. Steam shovels in the background move the rubble to railroad cars.

▲Work began in 1881, but progress was soon hampered by the onset of the rainy season. Disease, including malaria and yellow fever, claimed thousands of workers. By 1884, the death rate was over 200 each month. Pictured is an excavator at work in Bas Obispo in 1886.

▲In 1907, John Frank Stevens resigned as chief engineer. He was replaced by George Washington Goethals. A US Army Major and civil engineer, Goethals directed the work in Panama to a successful conclusion in 1914, two years ahead of the target date of June 10, 1916.

▲This 1913 photograph taken by Hallen shows the heavy shovels at work at Culebra Cut.

▲Ernest Hallen spent 30 years documenting the construction and progress of the Panama Canal. He also photographed Americans living and working in the Panama Canal Zone. For his efforts, Hallen was awarded the Roosevelt Medal with two bars.

▲Ernest Hallen's 1912 image of Gatun Upper Locks.

▲After WWII, relations between the US and Panama soured. Many Panamanians felt that the Canal Zone rightfully belonged to Panama, and demands for the US to hand over the canal increased.

▲On January 9, 1964, anti-American riots over sovereignty of the Panama Canal Zone turned deadly when 28 demonstrators were shot dead. This event is seen as pivotal in the eventual handover of the canal by the US to Panama 35 years later.

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Pictured are ships crossing Miraflores Locks in the Pacific end of the Panama Canal. Panama City is visible in the background.

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Pictured is a 1913 topological map of the Panama Canal, which also includes statistical information about its construction.

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The total length of the canal is 50 miles (80 km), and consists of artificial lakes, several improved and artificial channels, and three sets of locks.

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Pictured are Spanish laborers working on the Panama Canal in the early 1900s. More than 75,000 men and women worked on the canal in total. Unfortunately, 28,000 died while doing so.

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It's been over 20 years since Panama gained control of the Panama Canal from the United States, a stranglehold the US had exercised since 1903. Recently expanded to allow the transit of larger ships, the canal remains one of the seven wonders of the modern world. But its construction is a story of danger, disease, tragedy, and triumph.

Browse this gallery for an illustrated history of this unique waterway that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean.