As most people are aware, the Suez Canal was blocked earlier this year for six days (March 23-29). According to the Suez Canal Authority, which maintains and operates the waterway, the canal has closed five times since it opened for navigation in 1869. Interestingly, the Panama Canal has never been blocked, and has only been closed for a day. That occurred in 1989, when U.S. military forces staged an assault in Panama to depose the country’s leader, Manuel Noriega. A shortcut to the Orient The idea of creating a water passage across the isthmus of Panama to link the Atlantic and Pacific oceans dates back to at least the 1500s, when King Charles I of Spain (whose nation laid claim to most of Central and South America) instructed his regional governor to survey a route along the Chagres River. A shorter water route from Europe to Asia across Central America was the goal. However, engineering and other challenges of building a canal across the mountainous, jungle terrain proved much too daunting for the engineering knowledge of the time.