Suez Canal: Grounded Container Ship Blocks Critical Waterway

The Suez Canal is back in the news, after an enormous container ship got wedged sideways in the canal, blocking all traffic until it was freed, at last, on Monday. Controversy surrounding the canal, which connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean via the Red Sea, is nothing new. It has been part of the canal’s story since before it opened in 1869.

Canals existed as far back as antiquity in Egypt, so the notion of connecting the two seas had been considered since long before it was technologically feasible. China’s Grand Canal, which developed over many centuries, connected the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers with a system of locks as early as the seventh century A.D. The success of the Erie Canal, built between 1817 and 1825 to link the Hudson River to the Great Lakes, gave new life to the prospect of building two great connections: one in Suez and the other across Central America to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Both would be centers of intrigue in the middle of the 19th century, but the canal in Suez preceded the Panama Canal by half a century.

About the Author

Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review Online and a fellow at National Review Institute.

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The Suez Canal is back in the news, after an enormous container ship got wedged sideways in the canal, blocking all traffic until it was freed, at last, on Monday. Controversy surrounding the canal, which connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean via the Red Sea, is nothing new. It has been part of the canal’s story since before it opened in 1869.

Canals existed as far back as antiquity in Egypt, so the notion of connecting the two seas had been considered since long before it was technologically feasible. China’s Grand Canal, which developed over many centuries, connected the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers with a system of locks as early as the seventh century A.D. The success of the Erie Canal, built between 1817 and 1825 to link the Hudson River to the Great Lakes, gave new life to the prospect of building two great connections: one in Suez and the other across Central America to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Both would be centers of intrigue in the middle of the 19th century, but the canal in Suez preceded the Panama Canal by half a century.