transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:10] This is Angela O'Dell, and you are listening to Real Cool History for Kids, a podcast show featuring history told from a distinctly biblical worldview perspective. Welcome to an adventure. Welcome to episode 178 of Real Cool History for Kids. This episode is for Emily Murrah, who wanted to hear the story of the Panama Canal. Okay, you guys, before we even start our story, I want you to grab your world map or globe, if at all possible. The geography of this story is one of the most important parts of it. Throughout this episode, it would be awesome if you had your map so you can see where we are talking about. Okay, first, let's find Central America. Find North America, where the United States is, and then slide your finger down to the continent of South America. Now, look at that land that connects those two big continents. Do you see Panama? It's the first Central American country right above South America. Now, look really, really closely until you see Panama City. You should be able to see what looks like a river connecting the Pacific Ocean with the Caribbean Sea. Okay, look very closely. It's not very big on the map. That's the Panama Canal. It's a man-made waterway. The Panama Canal may look small on a map, you guys, but it is one of the most amazing, the most, the greatest engineering projects in the entire history of the world, okay? It is amazing. It is such a great story. So before the canal existed, ships had to travel all the way around the bottom of South America to get from one ocean to the other. Look how far that is. Go all the way down the side of South America, down to the tip. That long trip could take weeks more than a journey through Panama. That meant the canal had the power to dramatically change this journey for shipping. Imagine you are the captain of a ship loaded with bananas and coffee, mail, machinery, or other supplies. You are trying to get from New York all the way to San Francisco, or from Europe to the western coast of the Americas. Look how long that journey is when you have to go all the way down and around South America. Without a canal, you would have to sail thousands and thousands of extra miles around a very dangerous place down there called Cape Horn. It's way down there at the southern tip of South America. The seas there are famous for rough waters and waves, and the weather is terrible. A canal through Panama would save time and money and fuel, and it would be a lot safer, right? Well, people had dreamed about making a canal through Central America for a long time, but dreaming about something and building it are two very different things, aren't they? Panama is hot and rainy and muddy, and it has thick jungle. The land itself was difficult. There were hills to cut through and rivers to control, and swamps full of disease carrying mosquitoes. In the late 1800s, the French tried to build the canal first. The man leading the effort was Ferdinand de Lesseps, the same engineer who was helpful in the huge canal project in Egypt, the Suez Canal. Many people thought that if he could help with one canal, he could certainly help build another one, right? But Panama is not like Egypt. The Suez Canal was built across flat desert land, and Panama is rainy and wild and steep and full of all kinds of diseases. The French project struggled terribly. Thousands of workers died, especially from yellow fever and malaria. Those are the diseases that the mosquitoes carried. And the French effort soon collapsed. For many people, it seemed that the jungle had won. But the dream did not die. In 1904, how long ago is that, you guys? This is 2000, we live in 2026, right? So this is more than 120 years ago. It is 122 years ago. The United States took over the project and began construction again. And this time, leaders knew they had to solve two giant problems before they could actually be successful in finishing a canal. First, they knew they had to fight disease. Second, they had to figure out how to cut a path through mountains and rock without the whole thing crumbling apart. One of the most important men in this story was Dr. William C. Gorgas. He was a doctor and sanitation leader who understood that mosquitoes were spreading yellow fever and malaria. His teams drained standing water, cleaned areas where mosquitoes bred and multiplied, screened in buildings, put screens on the windows, and worked hard to make the canal zone healthier. Their work greatly reduced disease and helped make construction possible, because sick and dying people cannot build, right? That part of the story is easy to miss, but it is so important, it matters so much. It really is the foundational work for everything else, right? When people tell the story of the Panama Canal, they often talk about machines and locks and the engineering that goes, that went into all of the work, the giant shovels, all of those machines. But before the builders could conquer the land, they had to know how to fight sickness. Doctors, sanitation workers and engineers and laborers all played an important part in making the canal possible. So what about those workers? Tens of thousands of people helped build the Panama Canal. Many came from the Caribbean, especially places like Barbados and Jamaica. Others came from the United States and Panama and other countries. They dug through earth and stone, and they worked in brutal heat and faced dangerous landslides and handled massive machines. This was definitely not easy or glamorous work. It was exhausting and risky and often heartbreaking. So one of the hardest places to build was a specific section where the workers had to carve through hills, entire hills, and they had to blast through rocks so that the ships could pass through. They had to create a big enough opening where ships could pass through. So in this one section, after digging and blasting, the sides where they had dug out, sometimes all that stuff would just slide right back down into where they had dug out in huge landslides. So just imagine working for months to clear a big path, blasting away rocks and all of the things that were in the way, only to have tons and tons of mud and rock come crashing back down. Can you imagine how frustrating that would be? Over and over this happened. They would dig and it would crash back down. Just so frustrating and so backbreaking. Hey guys, I'm going to take a quick break right here in the middle of our story about the Panama Canal to give a shout out to a recent podcast reviewer, Theo, who says this about Real Cool History for Kids. My name is Theo Callahan, and I am five years old. My favorite episode is about the rat who digs out all the landmines. Thanks, Theo, I had a lot of fun. Making that episode, I'm so happy that you're enjoying it. This episode is made possible in part by our wonderful Patreon members, who help keep the show on the air and free to everyone. For just $8 a month, you too can get great resources to go along with all the new podcast episodes coming out. Also, guys, don't forget to stay tuned for the coming release of the first book and a new series, a brand new series. Yay. The Chronicles of Liberty. The Chronicles of Liberty are coming, you guys. It's so exciting. I'm so excited. It's coming soon. I know that you guys are going to absolutely love it. I love it. I'm having so much fun. Now, let's get back to our story about the Panama Canal. How does the Panama Canal actually work? It's not just a ditch filled with water. It's actually a whole system of very intricate designs of complicated locks. Let me explain what a lock is. A lock is like a giant water elevator for ships. You've gone into a building where you've had to go from one floor to another floor, a higher floor or a lower floor by getting in an elevator, you close the door and it goes down between the floors. Well, this is kind of the same concept. Since the land in the middle of Panama is higher than the sea level on either end, ships can't just simply sail through, right? They can't just go through because it's not flat. It's not like a flat waterway from one ocean to the other. So they actually have to climb. They have to climb up and over the center of the land. So the canal lifts ships up and carries them across to a higher central section and then lowers them back down on the other side. It's very interesting. So here's a simple way to picture it. A ship enters a lock chamber, which is like a giant water room with huge gates at each end. There's a gate on one end and a gate on the other end. The gates close behind the ship, then the water flows in and the ship rises higher and higher. When it reaches the new level, the gate opens at the other end, the one where the ship is going to go out, it opens up and the ship moves forward. So later in another lock on the opposite end of the canal, the opposite happens, where the water level drops to lower the ship again. So it raises the ship up, so it can move over, and then it drops it back down. That's pretty cool, isn't it? The original canal design used a three-step set of locks at Gatun, one lock at Pedro Miguel, and a two-step set at Mira Flores. Okay, so there are all these different types of steps and locks that took ships through. And these locks also helped ships move between the sea level and the higher waters. Okay, so it just kept moving them along. So think about this for a moment. Enormous ships floating inside giant concrete chambers being raised and lowered by water. That's really what it is. It's all that is. It's very, it's a simple concept, but it took a lot of work and a lot of engineering. So no wonder people all over the world thought the canal was one of the great wonders of the modern world. It really is quite amazing. All of this happened over a hundred years ago. It's just incredible. So after years of planning and digging and blasting and building and fighting disease, the Panama Canal finally opened on August 15th, 1914. Okay. So it took almost about a decade to build this thing. It immediately changed world shipping. Goods could move faster between the oceans and the canal became one of the most important waterways on earth. Think about all the things that travel on ships, you guys. Food and cars and clothing and building materials and fuel, and just basically everything you can think of is is shipped on ships. Okay. It's cargo on ships. The Panama Canal helped move those things all around the world much more quickly, and it connected countries and businesses and ports in a brand new way. But the canal is not only a story about human ingenuity that built machines and helped trade. It's also a story about perseverance. Think about this. The people building the canal, what did they face? They faced mud and heat and rain and sickness and insects and danger and so much disappointment, right? You've heard that that same two steps forward and one step back. That's exactly what it was like. At times, the work must have, it just seemed impossible. Yet, they kept going inch by inch and lock by lock, cut by cut. They built something that people had only imagined. Building the Panama Canal took years of hard work and determination. The people involved could not quit every time something went wrong. Think about that one. It didn't matter how frustrating something was. They kept going. They kept solving one problem after another. And there's a lesson in that too, isn't there? Human beings are able to do amazing things because God made us with brains that can think and design and invent and solve problems. We see that in engineering. We see it in medicine. We see it in teamwork. The Panama Canal is a powerful picture of people using skills and courage and collaboration to overcome enormous obstacles. Do you know what collaboration is? Collaboration is when people put together their different strengths and their different skills and they can solve problems much, much better than by themselves, right? Collaboration is a powerful, powerful thing in overcoming enormous obstacles. And that is exactly what the Panama Canal shows us. But we also have to remember the cost, right? Many workers suffered and many even died during the years of building the canal, especially during the early French effort and the hard years of construction. So when we talk about the canal, we should not only admire that engineering, we should also remember the people whose labor made it real. So in 1999, Panama assumed full control of the canal. And today, the canal is operated by the Panama Canal Authority. It continues to be one of the most important shipping routes in the world. So the next time you see a map of the Americas, look for that narrow little strip of land. And remember that it might be small on the map. Remember that it is one of the most astounding construction stories in history. The story of the Panama Canal teaches us that hard things are worth doing. Say it with me, hard things are worth doing. Big problems can be solved one step at a time, right? Big problems can be solved. You take it one step at a time. And perseverance matters, you guys. I remember when I was a little girl, and I was so overwhelmed with a big, big project. And I said to my dad, dad, I can't do this. It's just too much. I need help. And he says, well, I'm here to help you, but I want you to remember something. And I said, what? And he said, how do you eat an elephant? And I said, I don't eat elephants. He said, but what if you did? What if you did eat an elephant? How would you eat it? And I said, well, I don't know. He says, the answer is one bite at a time. Now, I don't go, I don't suggest you guys going and finding an elephant to eat, but that's not what he really meant anyway, is it? He was telling me to look at the problem, but don't look at it all at one time, to take one step at a time. And that is how we solve problems, right? Perseverance matters. It reminds us that courage often looks like just showing up again and again to do the hard work in front of you. This is so true, you guys, just showing up every day and doing your best. And that is something that I want you to remember from this story, okay? And now it's time for this episode's birthday shout outs. Happy birthday to Tim Nguyen who turned 10 on April 18th. Happy birthday to Otto Church who turned 8 on April 18th. Happy birthday to Avalyn Deason who turned 10 on April 18th. Happy birthday to Henry who turned 5 on April 18th. Happy birthday to Ariana Deason who turned 12 on April 19th. Happy birthday to Lucia Hebert who turned 8 on April 19th. Happy birthday to Asher Mobley who is turning 11 on April 22nd. And happy birthday to Sadie Mather who is turning 7 on April 30th. Happy birthday to all of you from the Real Cool History for Kids family. I hope you all have enjoyed this adventure in history today. Remember to keep exploring, to keep asking questions. And always remember, history is full of all kinds of real adventures and really cool stories. I'll meet you here soon for our next episode of Real Cool History for Kids. Until then, with the help and grace of Jesus, our Savior, be the best you.