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For my final research project, I decided to write about the Panama Canal and how it has proved in the past century to be an effective transoceanic passage link for Europeans to enter from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. I find this topic to be very interesting because I’ve always loved geography (I used to stare at maps and globes as a kid) and I think the Panama Canal plays a very crucial role in connecting all the reachable maritime locations of both the Atlantic and the Pacific. Panama being the smallest country between the two oceans and having waterways that big made this world project all the more feasible.
I also would like to include other smaller, pivotal oceanic straits along the Atlantic such as Gibraltar in the Mediterranean and the Strait of Magellan in the southernmost tip of South America because they were also important for maritime European travel and transport of resources long before the Panama Canal was constructed. First the Spanish made use of Panama’s rich waterways when they crossed the country by foot and by river just to get to Peru. The Magellan strait in particular was like the second phase of Europeans attempting to reach East Asia, following Columbus’ four voyages that happened only a decade ago when Magellan first began his. Eventually, all other naval entities such as the English and the French had to risk sailing around the hazardous, storm-infested Cape Horn to reach Pacific destinations. One figure who’s crucially noted for making this passage was the English privateer, Sir Francis Drake, who sailed up the northern Pacific as far as Alaska in search of the “Middle Passage” back to England. Cape Horn was renamed Drake’s Passage as a result to honor his endeavor. My goal in researching this topic is to understand what common European thought on going to the Pacific was like before ideas of the Panama Canal came to thought, or at best, ideas on how to build the canal itself.