The Panama Canal has its origins in early Spanish explorers searching for a passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the narrow Isthmus of Panama. France was the first to attempt construction of a sea-level canal in the late 1800s but failed. The United States later took over the project, completing the canal in 1914 and gaining control of the Panama Canal Zone. The canal remains an important commercial waterway connecting global shipping routes.

1. The Panamá Canal
The history of the Panama Canal goes back to the early
explorers of America. The narrow land bridge between North
and South America offered a unique opportunity to create a
water passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The
first settlers of Central America recognized the potential of the
waterway and several times since its construction plans were
outlined.
At the end of the 1800s serious beginning construction, due
to the enormous technological advances and the insistence of
investors were given. France was the first to take the
initiative to build a sea level canal, but failed, even after doing
a lot of digging. The United States took advantage of this
French effort which resulted in the present Panama Canal
opened in 1914, The Republic of Panama established its
independence, by its separation from Colombia in 1903.
Today, the Panama Canal remains a profitable commercial
enterprise and also maintains its fundamental performance of
maritime connection. The strategic location of the Panama
Canal and the short distance between the Atlantic and Pacific
oceans, has led for many years other attempts to copy the
marketing route between the two oceans. Although initial
plans between an overland route that would connect the ports
between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, speculation about a
possible channel is plotted, it goes back to the first European
explorations of the Americas. The victorious Panamanians
returned the favor to Roosevelt by allowing the United States

2. control of the Panama Canal Zone on February 23, 1904, in
the amount of 10 million dollars (as stipulated in the Hay-
Bunau-Varilla signed on November 18, 1903).
The Isthmus of Panama and was used by Native Americans
before the arrival of Europeans in the fifteenth century to the
displacement between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The first
European explorers discovered ancient roads through the
isthmus, used by pre-Columbian civilizations and Wounaan
peoples and Gnabe.

3. Some 35 ships pass daily through the isthmus, leaving the
Central American country daily income of about $ 6 million. In
an exclusive interview with Dinero.com. Jorge Quijano,
administrator of the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) revealed
details of what will come after its enlargement.
The history of the Panama Canal to the first Spanish explorers
back in America, because the thin strip of land, the Isthmus
of Panama, is an ideal place to create a passage for shipping
between the Pacific and Atlantic. In the early sixteenth
century Central Colon sail looking for a passageway on his
fourth voyage and also the area attract the attention of
Hernán Cortés.
In 1514, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, the first European explorer
to see the eastern Pacific, built a route used to transport their
ships from Santa María la Antigua del Darién on the Atlantic
coast of Panama Bay in San Miguel Pacific. This route was
from 50 to 65 km long, but it was quickly abandoned. In
November 1515, Captain Antonio Tello de Guzmán discovered
a road that crossed the isthmus from Panama to the Gulf of
Panama, near the abandoned town of Nombre de Dios. This
route had been used by natives for centuries and was viable.
Was improved and paved by the Spaniards and became El
Camino Real. The road was used to transport the gold to
Portobelo and from there take it to Spain and became the first
major route istmo.8 The first Portuguese navigator Ferdinand
Magellan, who sailed for the King of Spain Carlos I, find a way
between the two oceans, the Strait of Magellan in 1520, but
the trip showed that the road was too dangerous and had also
to sail almost to the southern tip of the American continent,

4. so there was a need to find another way easy to reach Sur.9
Seas in 1524, King Charles I suggested digging a canal
somewhere in Panama that would make travel to Peru were
shorter and allow ships avoid the Horn and its dangers,
especially for the transport of gold. A first draft was made
1529, but the political situation in Europe and the
technological level of the time made it impossible. The road to
Portobelo the Pacific had its first problems in 1533 and Gaspar
de Espinosa recommended to the king to build a new route.
His plan is to build a road from the city of Panama, the Pacific
terminus in the Camino Real and the town of Cruces, on the
banks of the Chagres River and 30 km from Panama. Once in
the Chagres River, cargo is transported on ships to the
Caribbean Sea. The road was built and called the Camino de
Cruces and Las Cruces trail. At the mouth of the Chagres
River, the small town of Chagres is enriched and the fortress
of San Lorenzo was built on a promontory overlooking the
entire area. Chagres, loads were transported to the
warehouse of the king in Portobelo. This is where for more
than two centuries performed the famous Portobello Fair,
which consisted of large exchanges between the southern part
of the continent (Viceroyalty of Peru) and the great Spanish
crown. The route lasted several hundred years and was even
widely used in 1840 as a result of the California gold rush.