Ferdinand de Lesseps

Ferdinand Marie, Vicomte de Lesseps GCSI (19 November 1805 – 7 December 1894) is the French developer of the Suez Canal, which joins the Mediterranean and Red Seas in 1869, and substantially reduces sailing distances and times between the West and the East.

He attempts to repeat this success with an effort to build a Panama Canal at sea-level during the 1880s, but the project is devastated by epidemics of malaria and yellow fever in the area, and the projected de Lesseps Panama Canal is left uncompleted.

It is eventually partially superseded by a non-sea-level canal with locks, built by the United States and completed in 1914.

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