Under Suez Canal developer, Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French drew up plans for a canal without locks, and began building the Panama Canal on January 1, 1880. Unfortunately for French workers, a proper study of all things involved was never executed, and some 20,000 of them would die in the process.
http://www.destination360.com/central-america/panama/panama-canal-history
The average pay of a clerk was $125 per moth, and of a division chief from $200 to $300 per month. After two years' service, five months vacation, with free traveling expenses to and from France, were granted. The hours of labor for the clerical force was from 8 to 11 a.m., and 2 to 5 p.m., six hours a day.
http://www.czbrats.com/Builders/FRCanal/failure.htm
In 1534, the Spanish revisited the idea of building the first Panama Canal, and had they not abandoned the notion, it would have been constructed close to where the present day canal is found.
http://www.destination360.com/central-america/panama/panama-canal-history
During the late 1890s Bunaua-Varilla convinced US lawmakers to buy the rights to build the French canal in Panama, sending each senator Nicaragua postage stamps with a smoking volcano. In 1903, Colombia (which controlled Panama) refused to allow the United States to build the canal. The people of Panama, with help from Bunaua-Varilla, then overthrew their Colombian government and became independent (which made construction of the canal possible).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Panama_Canal
History of the Panama Canal. The idea for a Panama canal dates back to the 1513 discovery of the isthmus by Vasco Núñez de Balboa. The narrow land bridge between North and South America houses the Panama Canal, a water passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The earliest Central American European colonists recognized this potential, and several proposals for such a canal were made.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Panama_Canal
These experts prepared a plan for the sanitation of the Canal Zone and the cities of Panama and Colon. On June 30, 1904, the Sanitary Department was formed with Colonel Gorgas as its head. The Isthmus of Panama was an ideal environment for mosquitoes. The high temperature varies little during the year. The rainy season lasts for nine months and the interior of the Isthmus is tropical jungle, ideal for mosquito breeding. The Panama Canal extends diagonally across the Isthmus of Panama from south-east to north-west, a distance of 42 miles from shore to shore. At Panama, the antimalarial work was principally rural, located for 47 miles along the line of the railroad between Panama and Colon.
https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/panama_canal.html
Panama Canal history is generally thought of as beginning in the 1800's, but studies show that the Spanish had plans for a canal at the Panama Isthmus long before that. Dating back to around 1530, the Spanish were busy conquering much of the New World.
http://www.destination360.com/central-america/panama/panama-canal-history
Under President Theodore Roosevelt, the United States bought out the French equipment and took over the excavations for the Panama Canal on May 4,1904. The U.S. had recently helped Panama gain its independence from Colombia, which figured prominently in the U.S. building of the Panama Canal.
http://www.destination360.com/central-america/panama/panama-canal-history
The proposed sea level canal was to have uniform depth of 29.5 feet, a bottom width of 72 feet, and a width of the water line of about 90 feet, and involved excavation estimated at 157,000,000 cubic yards. The engineering congress estimated seven or eight years as the time required to complete the work.
http://www.czbrats.com/Builders/FRCanal/failure.htm
In 1907, George Washington Goethals took over as chief engineer, overseeing the ensuing building of the Panama Canal. Finished two years ahead of time, the canal was opened on August 15, 1914, with the cargo ship Ancon the first to pass through.
http://www.destination360.com/central-america/panama/panama-canal-history
what year did france begin building the panama canal
France began building the Panama Canal on January 1, 1880.