Suez Canal Opens
The Suez Canal opened after 10 years of construction, linking the Mediterranean and Red Sea
November 17, 1869
A Waterway Through the Desert
On November 17, 1869, the Suez Canal officially opened in Egypt, creating a direct water route between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea and eliminating the need for ships to sail around the entire continent of Africa. The canal is about 120 miles long and was built across the narrow strip of desert that separates Africa from the Sinai Peninsula. A grand inauguration ceremony drew royalty and heads of state from across Europe. French Empress Eugénie attended aboard her yacht, and the French-built canal was initially celebrated as a triumph of French engineering. It took ten years to build, using the labor of hundreds of thousands of Egyptian workers, many of them working under conditions of forced labor.
Control, Crisis, and Nationalization
Britain quickly recognized the canal's enormous strategic and commercial importance. In 1875, the British government bought a large stake in the canal company from the debt-ridden Egyptian government. By 1882, Britain had occupied Egypt militarily and effectively controlled the canal. In 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the canal, declaring that its revenues would be used to fund the Aswan Dam. Britain, France, and Israel responded with a military invasion — the Suez Crisis — but were forced to back down under pressure from the United States and the Soviet Union. The crisis marked the effective end of British and French power as global empires and the beginning of American and Soviet dominance in the Middle East.
The Canal Today
The Suez Canal remains one of the world's most important shipping lanes. It carries about 12 percent of all global trade, including large amounts of oil and liquefied natural gas from the Persian Gulf to European and North American markets. The canal's importance was vividly demonstrated in March 2021, when the giant container ship Ever Given ran aground and blocked the canal for six days, causing massive disruption to global supply chains. Egypt has invested heavily in expanding the canal's capacity. The canal is a vital source of revenue for Egypt and a reminder of how much global commerce depends on a handful of critical geographical chokepoints.