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Welcome to Fascinating Facts and Eductional Trivia

A Hartson Dowd Column

November 17, 2007

November 17, the 321st day of 2007. There are 44 days left in the year.

Today's highlight in history:

 November 17, 1869 Suez Canal opens

The Suez Canal (Arabic: قناة السويس, transliteration: Qanā al-Suways), is a large artificial canal in Egypt, west of the Sinai Peninsula. It is 163 km (101 miles) long and 300 m (984 ft) wide at its narrowest point, and runs between Port Said (Būr Sa'īd) on the Mediterranean Sea, and Suez (al-Suways) on the Red Sea.

The canal allows two-way water transportation, most importantly between Europe and Asia without circumnavigation of Africa. Before its opening in 1869, goods were sometimes offloaded from ships and carried over land between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.

The canal comprises seven parts, north and south of the Great Bitter Lake, linking the Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf of Suez on the Red Sea.

The Suez Canal, connecting the Mediterranean and the Red seas, is inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony attended by French Empress Eug?nie, wife of Napoleon III.

In 1854, Ferdinand de Lesseps, the former French consul to Cairo, secured an agreement with the Ottoman governor of Egypt to build a canal 100 miles across the Isthmus of Suez. An international team of engineers drew up a construction plan, and in 1856 the Suez Canal Company was formed and granted the right to operate the canal for 99 years after completion of the work.

Construction began in April 1859, and at first digging was done by hand with picks and shovels wielded by forced laborers. Later, European workers with dredgers and steam shovels arrived. Labor disputes and a cholera epidemic slowed construction, and the Suez Canal was not completed until 1869--four years behind schedule. On November 17, 1869, the Suez Canal was opened to navigation. Ferdinand de Lesseps would later attempt, unsuccessfully, to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama.

When it opened, the Suez Canal was only 25 feet deep, 72 feet wide at the bottom, and 200 to 300 feet wide at the surface. Consequently, fewer than 500 ships navigated it in its first full year of operation. Major improvements began in 1876, however, and the canal soon grew into the one of the world's most heavily traveled shipping lanes. In 1875, Great Britain became the largest shareholder in the Suez Canal Company when it bought up the stock of the new Ottoman governor of Egypt. Seven years later, in 1882, Britain invaded Egypt, beginning a long occupation of the country. The Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936 made Egypt virtually independent, but Britain reserved rights for the protection of the canal.

After World War II, Egypt pressed for evacuation of British troops from the Suez Canal Zone, and in July 1956 Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the canal, hoping to charge tolls that would pay for construction of a massive dam on the Nile River. In response, Israel invaded in late October, and British and French troops landed in early November, occupying the canal zone. Under pressure from the United Nations, Britain and France withdrew in December, and Israeli forces departed in March 1957. That month, Egypt took control of the canal and reopened it to commercial shipping.

Ten years later, Egypt shut down the canal again following the Six Day War and Israel's occupation of the Sinai Peninsula. For the next eight years, the Suez Canal, which separates the Sinai from the rest of Egypt, existed as the front line between the Egyptian and Israeli armies. In 1975, Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat reopened the Suez Canal as a gesture of peace after talks with Israel. Today, an average of 50 ships navigate the canal daily, carrying more than 300 million tons of goods a year.

Operation

The canal has no locksbecause the terrain through which it passes is flat, and the minor difference in sea level at the ends is easily coped with through the length of the canal.

The canal allows the passage of ships of up to some 150,000 tons displacement, with cargo. It permits ships of up to 16 m (53 ft) draft to pass, and improvements are planned to increase this to 22 m (72 ft) by 2010 to allow passage of fully-laden supertankers. Presently, supertankers can offload part of their cargo onto a canal-owned boat and reload at the other end of the canal. Tankers exceeding Suezmax, the largest allowable size for passing through the canal, have to travel around the Cape of Good Hope instead.

There is one shipping lane with several passing areas. On a typical day, three convoys transit the canal, two southbound and one northbound. The first southbound convoy enters the canal in the early morning hours and proceeds to the Great Bitter Lake, where the ships anchor out of the fairway and await the passage of the northbound convoy. The northbound convoy passes the second southbound convoy, which moors to the canal bank in a by-pass, in the vicinity of El Qantara. The passage takes between 11 and 16 hours at a speed of around 8 knots (15 km/h). The low speed helps prevent erosion of the canal banks by ship's wakes.

Egypt's Suez Canal Authority (SCA) reported that in 2003 17,224 ships passed through the canal. The canal averages about 8% of the world shipping traffic.

By 1955 approximately two-thirds of Europe's oil passed through the canal. About 7.5% of world sea trade is carried via the canal today. Receipts from the canal July 2005 to May 2006 totaled $3.246 billion. In 2005, 18,193 vessels passed through the canal.

Timeline

• Circa 1799 — Napoleon I of France conquered Egypt and ordered a feasibility analysis. This reported a supposed 10 metre difference in sea levels, and a high estimated cost, so the project was set on standby.
• Circa 1840 — A second survey demonstrated that the first one was erroneous; a direct link between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea would be possible and would not be as expensive as expected.
• Circa 1854 — The French consul in Cairo, Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps, created the "Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez".
• 25 Apr 1859 — The French were officially allowed to begin the canal construction (Said Pacha acquired 22% of the Suez Canal Company, the rest of the shares were controlled by French private holders).
• 16 Nov 1869 — The Suez Canal opened; operated and owned by Suez Canal Company.
• 25 Nov 1875 — Britain became a minority share holder in the Suez Company, acquiring 44% of the Suez Canal Company. The rest of the shares were controlled by French syndicates.
• 25 Aug 1882 — Britain took control of the canal.
• 2 Mar 1888 — The Convention of Constantinople guaranteed right of passage of all ships through the Suez Canal during war and peace.
• 14 Nov 1936 — Suez Canal Zone established, under British control.
• 13 Jun 1956 — Suez Canal Zone restored to Egypt.
• 26 Jul 1956 — Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal.
• 5 Nov 1956 to 22 Dec 1956 — French, British, and Israeli forces occupied the Suez Canal Zone.
• 22 Dec 1956 — Restored to Egypt.
• 5 June 1967 to 10 June 1967 — Canal closed and blockaded by Egypt, against Israel, sparking the Six-Day War.
• 10 April 1975 — Suez Canal reopened.