The Suez Canal: the Water Bridge Connecting Europe and Asia
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Did you know that the Suez Canal actually has a riveting history? The ancient Egyptians were interested in connecting the Nile to the Red Sea at one point and, after thousands of years, Napoleon Bonaparte actually made plans to make that connection a reality.
Sadly, the project was a failure. It wasn't till 1859, nearly 60 years later, that the Suez Canal Company tried its hand at the task and construction finally began. With the combined efforts of nearly 1 million Egyptian laborers, construction of the canal was completed 10 years later in 1869.
It's rather surprising that it took so long to build as the canal's construction is relatively simple. Thanks to the fact that the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea’s Gulf of Suez have roughly the same water level, ships navigating from Port Said to Port Suez, or vice versa, can do so largely uninterrupted.
How does the Suez Canal work? What is the engineering and technology behind this world-famous canal? In this video, we bring you all the details behind the construction of this famous water bridge and even bring you footage of the ships passing through.