HISTORY - The Suez Canal

Since the days of the Pharaohs, men had dreamed of a waterway connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf of Suez.  Egyptian Legend states that a canal that connected the Nile to the Bitter Seas was actually built in 1500 B.C. by the ruler Sesotris.  It was called the canal of Pharaohs. For the next two thousand years, the Canal of Pharaohs was opened or closed according to the will of the current ruler. One ruler would have the canal filled with sand, while another would have it re-excavated.

Napoleon was the first man in modern times to attempt to build a canal. He led an expedition into Egypt in 1798 and ordered a survey of the area. After a year, Napoleon's surveyor, Jacques Le Pere, came back with a report that the Red Sea was thirty-two feet higher than the Mediterranean Sea. This difference would have to be fixed by building a series of locks. (Otherwise the Red Sea would flood Egypt.)


It is a good thing Napoleon never got a chance to build, because locks were never necessary. Le Pere's calculations were wrong. The Red and Mediterranean sea were almost identical in height.

Later in time, the French government built the canal that Egypt wanted so badly. The canal was open for traffic in 1869.