Our friends Ben and Rosie Klaus had been on this cruise and invited us to their home to see photos of their trip. We had read about the canal, but nothing compares to seeing this engineering feat first hand. According to Wikipedia, "An initial attempt by France to build a sea-level canal failed, but only after a great amount of excavation was carried out. This was of use to the United States, which completed the present Panama Canal in 1913 and officially opened it in 1914. Along the way, the state of Panama was created through its separation from Colombia in 1903, due to a US backed revolt, so the US could then get control of the Canal project area.
Today, the canal continues to be not only a viable commercial venture, but also a vital link in world shipping." There is a great amount of information about the canal on the internet, as well as a book by David McCullough, "The Path Between the Seas" but be prepared for a long, slow, detailed read of this 600 + page book.