Panama Canal Advances: Wilson Blasts the Last Dike
President Woodrow Wilson pressed a telegraph key in Washington on October 10, 1913, sending an electrical signal that detonated dynamite at the Gamboa Dike in Panama, allowing water to flood the Culebra Cut and connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the canal for the first time. The original French effort under Ferdinand de Lesseps had tried to build a sea-level canal and failed catastrophically, with 22,000 workers dying from malaria and yellow fever. The Americans under chief engineer George Washington Goethals chose a lock-based design that raised ships 85 feet above sea level through artificial Gatun Lake. The canal opened to commercial traffic on August 15, 1914. It shortened the maritime route from New York to San Francisco from 13,000 miles around Cape Horn to 5,000 miles.
October 10, 1913
113 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on October 10
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Husayn ibn Ali fell in battle against the forces of the Umayyad Caliph Yazid I at Karbala, cementing the definitive schism between Sunni and Shia Islam. His dea…
Charles Martel’s Frankish infantry shattered the Umayyad Caliphate’s cavalry charge between Tours and Poitiers, halting the northern expansion of Islamic forces…
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