The creation of the Panama Canal was much more than an unprecedented engineering feat. It was a profoundly important historical event and an overwhelming human drama, not unlike that of a war. Aside from wars, it represented the largest and most expensive effort ever undertaken on earth. It attracted the world's attention for a span of 40 years because of all the work done and the problems that needed to be solved for the completion of this major worldwide project (Ayers et al 610). It has influenced the lives of multiple nationalities. Great reputations were created and destroyed. This worldwide project involved numerous men and women who worked and approached this creation as the adventure of a lifetime (Hammond 64). The original reason the Panama Canal was designed and built was because of a man named Vasco Nunez de Balboa. This Spanish explorer discovered the existence of an isthmus, a narrow strip of land with water on each side, between the two great seas. Balboa, the first European to see the expanse of the Pacific Ocean in 1513, was also the first to see the possibility of a canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans (Ochoa 78-81). Before the canal project began, the land area was surveyed and the Spanish built a road, the Royal Highway, through Panama to connect the two large bodies of water. This road was completed in 1522. News spread quickly and the idea of ​​a canal project to connect the two seas was born. People in many countries began to dream of building and completing such a canal through Central America. Before a canal was built, a railroad was built during the California Gold Rush, which began in 1849. When gold was discovered in California, thousands of people headed west to seek fortunes for… half of paper .... ..extraordinary. These landslides were caused by heavy rains which often caused the excavated hills to collapse, resulting in massive landslides. Workers made their way across the continent with dynamite and steam shovels. These engineering maneuvers were slow and time consuming, but were successfully completed (McCullough 106-108). It took 33 years to complete the canal. The effort produced a canal that serves as a vital commercial and military waterway. Many people had argued the need for this canal for war/defense, travel and trade purposes. This route allowed ships to travel between Atlantic and Pacific ports without sailing around South America, saving distance of more than 7,800 miles. The construction of this canal was not only a major engineering achievement, but was also a political and economic victory for the United States (Winkelman 157).