World trade is a big business (I mean yeah,
it pretty much *is* the economy after all) and thus situating yourself near a chokepoint
between two major bodies of water (à la Singapore) can be a godsend to an area’s local economy. However if I were to ask most people which
is the most important waterway in the world, sure some would answer the Straights of Malacca
or the South China Sea, but for most it would be a toss-up between the Panama and Suez Canals. In this video, we will focus on the history
and construction of the Suez Canal, the bigger and also much older of the two. Like, /much/ older. The Suez Canal, as it currently exists, is
a 193-kilometer artificial waterway connecting the Mediterranean Sea at Port Said to the
Red Sea at Port Tewfik. This waterway connects the Atlantic and Indian
Oceans in a way that doesn’t require a ship heading between Europe and Asia either go
around Africa or... wait for the ice to melt in the Arctic. The canal also, unlike the Panama Canal, has
no locks at all, making it easier for ships to slip right through and for the canal to
be expanded, should the Egyptian government prioritize such a project. This makes this little waterway between Africa
and Asia one of the most revolutionary projects in the transportation world. With this canal, a ship traveling from (for
example) Port Sudan to Antalya, Turkey would only have to travel about 2,000 kilometers,
without the canal this distance would be nearly 23,000 kilometers, which means it would be
a shorter distance by boat to Samoa. So this is pretty damn important! The Suez Canal was first opened in 1869, or
at least the Suez Canal as we know it today. You see, as tough as it may have been to build
a canal at this scale, this canal was far from the first of its kind, and even less
so the first attempt. In fact a canal of this sort was first attempted
by Egypt in the 19th century… BC, under the rule of Middle Kingdom pharaoh
Senusret II-- though do keep in mind these records aren’t in the best condition, with
some theorizing that it might have been under the rule of Ramesses II, which is a pretty
big range. Regardless, this canal was not located in
the Sinai Peninsula, as is the current one, rather it was a canal between the Red Sea
(which at this time extended much further north) and the Nile River; logically seeing
as this was the heart of Egyptian civilization. Later canals in this area, likely even building
upon the original, were constructed over 1,000 years later, with the only functional one
of these being built under Darius I of Persia. A canal was reportedly later opened by the
time of the Islamic Caliphates between the Red Sea and Old Cairo (basically the pre-release
version of Cairo itself), though this was reportedly closed under orders from Caliph
Al-Mansur in the 8th century AD. That combined with the Red Sea gradually receding
away from what are now the Bitter Lakes caused the canal to fade into disuse. Trade in the area was generally served more
by overland caravan until after the 15th century, when western European nations decided to start
going west to try to get to East Asia, and also after the Portuguese figured out how
to encircle Africa in 1488. Venice was a natural loser in this arrangement,
and so decided to strike a deal with the Mamluk Sultanate to build a new canal through the
Sinai Peninsula, but this idea had to be shelved because of that whole Ottoman-conquest-of-Egypt-in-1517
thing. That didn’t mean the Ottomans weren’t
interested in a Suez Canal either though, in fact it would have been a godsend to connect
the imperial core in and around Constantinople to the trade and pilgrimage routes of the
Indian Ocean (I mean, the Ottoman Empire did also hold Mecca). However this project was eventually deemed
too expensive and also shelved. Napoleon then came to Egypt at the end of
the 18th century and also thought building a canal here would be a good idea and so decided
to survey the land. However their calculations told them that
the Red Sea was about 10 meters higher than the Mediterranean, and so they also gave up. In the following decades, with Egypt now under
the Muhammad Ali Dynasty (again, no relation), a railway was setup between Alexandria and
Suez… but this wasn’t good enough for global trade, so guess what they thought of? That’s right, a canal! After it was found that Napoleon’s surveys
got the height of the seas wrong, the canal’s biggest sponsor was Frenchman Ferdinand de
Lesseps. Initially Muhammad Ali Pasha was not interested,
but de Lesseps became a long-time friend with his son Mohammed Sa’id Pasha, who granted
a special zone for the canal to be built, with the Suez Canal Company established in
1858, and the land given to said company on a 99-year lease with 75% of the profits going
to them, 15% to Egypt, and 10% to their investors. Construction broke ground in 1859 and would
take ten years and a grand total of over 1.5 million workers throughout the decade (though
usually 30,000 at a time), with thousands of worker deaths due to various outbreaks,
mainly cholera. After the two teams met in the middle at the
Bitter Lakes, a huge opening ceremony was held on the canal on 15.November.1869, with
banquets on Ismail Pasha’s yacht and blessings with both Christian and Islamic ceremonies
(including a temporary church and mosque for the event). The area, seeing virtually immediate success,
was declared in the Constantinople Convention to be an international zone under British
protection. This would play a pivotal part in the World
Wars, and would also contribute to conflict between Britain and Egypt in the Suez Crisis. If this video gets popular enough I’ll do
a full video on the Suez Canal’s 20th century history, but the Canal became a huge source
of contention between Egypt and France, Britain, and Israel. Regardless, the moral of the story, kids,
is that you shouldn’t give up on your dreams that easily… I guess. This video was brought to you by CuriosityStream. Hey is that that new documentary streaming
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so I wanted to remind everyone. Thanks for watching! I admittedly had to kind of rush this video
for travel reasons, but be sure to like, share, and especially subscribe to learn something
new every Sunday (especially next week, where I’ll be coming to you from Rome). Oh and let me know if you want a follow-up
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