How a 3,000-Year-Old Obsession Built the Suez Canal — Transcript

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1. 0:00Centuries before our era, Egyptian
2. 0:02pharaohs said, "Let's dig here." and hit
3. 0:06a dead end. Persian kings tried next,
4. 0:09but sandstorms swallowed the whole
5. 0:11project. Roman emperors came, saw the
6. 0:14insane cost, and ran away. Even Napoleon
7. 0:18gave it a shot, but backed off when his
8. 0:21engineers falsely claimed one sea was
9. 0:23higher than the other and would flood
10. 0:25everything. For thousands of years, even
11. 0:28the civilizations that built the giant
12. 0:31pyramids repeatedly threw in the towel
13. 0:34on this ancient obsession. It wasn't the
14. 0:37magic of pharaohs that finally broke
15. 0:39through. It was the 19th century's first
16. 0:42steam-powered steel monsters chewing
17. 0:45straight through the desert.
18. 0:47Now, let's take a closer look at the
19. 0:49story of history's most efficient canal.
20. 0:53Everything started over 2,000 years ago
21. 0:56with an Egyptian ruler named Pharaoh
22. 0:58Necho. People desperately wanted a
23. 1:00shortcut between the Mediterranean and
24. 1:02the Red Sea, but cutting through the
25. 1:04entire desert was impossible back then.
26. 1:07So, Necho found a clever workaround.
27. 1:10Ships would sail from the Mediterranean
28. 1:12directly into the Nile River and then
29. 1:15turn into a man-made canal slicing
30. 1:17sideways toward the Red Sea. To turn
31. 1:20this two-sea link into reality, Necho
32. 1:23marched thousands of farmers out into
33. 1:25the blistering wasteland. Equipped with
34. 1:28simple wooden shovels and reed baskets,
35. 1:31they began scooping out an enormous
36. 1:33trench through the dirt. Under the
37. 1:35scorching sun and with almost no clean
38. 1:38drinking water, thousands of workers
39. 1:41collapsed and died right there in the
40. 1:43desert. Just when the fresh river water
41. 1:46was about to connect both seas, a royal
42. 1:49fortune-teller panicked the pharaoh. The
43. 1:52seer claimed enemy invaders [music]
44. 1:54would use this brand new shortcut to
45. 1:56sail straight in and conquer Egypt.
46. 2:00Terrified by a simple superstition,
47. 2:02Necho ordered everyone to drop their
48. 2:05tools, leaving all that brutal work and
49. 2:08every lost life behind for nothing.
50. 2:11Centuries later, the Persian king Darius
51. 2:14conquered Egypt and spotted the
52. 2:16abandoned trench. Wanting to prove he
53. 2:18was far smarter than the old pharaohs,
54. 2:21he forced thousands of fresh workers
55. 2:23back into the heat. He pushed the ditch
56. 2:25all the way through, finally completing
57. 2:27history's very first working water
58. 2:30connection between the Mediterranean and
59. 2:32the Red Sea.
60. 2:33To celebrate his massive ego, Darius
61. 2:36placed towering granite stones along the
62. 2:38banks, loudly boasting that his ships
63. 2:41now ruled across both seas. But there
64. 2:44was an embarrassing design flaw. The
65. 2:47canal was so ridiculously narrow that
66. 2:50two warships could not pass each other
67. 2:52without crashing. Within a very short
68. 2:54time, normal desert sandstorms swept in
69. 2:57and choked the entire waterway, burying
70. 3:00his big pride right back under the sand.
71. 3:03After Persian rule faded, Roman
72. 3:06conquerors arrived and decided to fix
73. 3:08the old canal yet again. But their
74. 3:11engineers noticed a massive disaster
75. 3:14waiting to happen. If salty seawater
76. 3:16flowed into the sweet Nile River, all
77. 3:19the wheat fields would be ruined and
78. 3:21Egypt would starve. To stop this
79. 3:24catastrophe, smart Roman builders
80. 3:26constructed giant wooden water gates,
81. 3:29creating history's first canal locks to
82. 3:31keep the two different waters separate.
83. 3:33For a brief golden era, heavy Roman
84. 3:36barges sailed through, moving endless
85. 3:39grains straight to Rome.
86. 3:41But keeping a water trench alive in the
87. 3:44desert is an eternal chore.
88. 3:46The moment the Roman Empire began
89. 3:48crumbling and money dried up, nobody was
90. 3:51left to shovel out the blowing dunes.
91. 3:54Within just a few decades, howling
92. 3:56sandstorms completely swallowed the
93. 3:59Stone Gates, turning the empire's
94. 4:01brilliant shortcut back into dry, silent
95. 4:04dust.
96. 4:06Centuries later, European explorers
97. 4:08pulled off a game-changing move.
98. 4:11Portuguese ships sailed completely
99. 4:13around Africa, dodging the Mediterranean
100. 4:15and stealing the world's spice trade.
101. 4:18Suddenly, the mighty Ottoman Empire was
102. 4:21losing mountains of gold on precious
103. 4:23pepper, silk, and cinnamon.
104. 4:25The Ottoman Grand Vizier, Sokollu Mehmed
105. 4:28Pasha, stared at his world map and
106. 4:31proposed an audacious counterattack. Cut
107. 4:34right through the Suez desert and sail
108. 4:36an imperial war fleet straight to the
109. 4:39Indian Ocean.
110. 4:40The ambitious plan sounded unstoppable
111. 4:43on royal parchment, but the desert was
112. 4:45an entirely different beast. How could
113. 4:48you keep tens of thousands of diggers
114. 4:50alive in a sun-baked wasteland without
115. 4:53any freshwater pipes or modern steam
116. 4:55power?
117. 4:56Trapped between massive ongoing wars on
118. 4:59other borders and an impossible
119. 5:01logistical nightmare, the sultan
120. 5:03hesitated. The grand blueprints were
121. 5:06rolled up, locked inside imperial
122. 5:08archives, and left untouched for
123. 5:10hundreds of years.
124. 5:12At the end of the 18th century, the
125. 5:14famous French leader Napoleon Bonaparte
126. 5:17invaded Egypt with a massive ambition.
127. 5:20He wanted to cut a water ditch straight
128. 5:23between both seas and wipe out British
129. 5:25trade dominance with one single blow.
130. 5:29He ordered his top scientific surveyors
131. 5:31out into the baking sun with measuring
132. 5:33tools to inspect the desert ground.
133. 5:36His chief surveyor returned with one of
134. 5:38history's most embarrassing calculation
135. 5:41errors. He claimed the Red Sea was 10 m
136. 5:44higher than the Mediterranean, warning
137. 5:47that opening a canal would drown all of
138. 5:49Egypt in an unstoppable flood.
139. 5:52Terrified of wiping out an entire
140. 5:54country, Napoleon panicked and canceled
141. 5:57the whole mission, freezing the canal
142. 5:59dream for another 50 years.
143. 6:0250 years later, real engineers proved
144. 6:05both seas sat at the exact same water
145. 6:08level.
146. 6:09Enter Ferdinand de Lesseps, a man who
147. 6:11was neither an engineer nor an
148. 6:14architect, but a charming retired French
149. 6:16diplomat.
150. 6:17He had an old childhood friend who just
151. 6:20became the new ruler of Egypt, Prince
152. 6:22Sa'id, and Lesseps knew exactly how to
153. 6:25win him over with sweet talk and shared
154. 6:27adventures.
155. 6:28Lesseps convinced the young prince to
156. 6:30sign a massive deal granting him the
157. 6:33right to carve the desert open. Across
158. 6:36the water, the furious British
159. 6:38government laughed out loud, calling
160. 6:40Lesseps a crazy con artist chasing an
161. 6:43impossible fairy tale.
162. 6:45But this stubborn Frenchman ignored all
163. 6:48the haters, setting up one of history's
164. 6:50biggest, dustiest construction gambles.
165. 6:53In the beginning, there were no giant
166. 6:55machines or modern tools to conquer the
167. 6:58desert.
168. 6:59Ferdinand de Lesseps forced hundreds of
169. 7:01thousands of poor Egyptian farmers out
170. 7:04into the blazing sun with nothing but
171. 7:07small iron picks and woven baskets.
172. 7:10It felt like trying to dig an entire
173. 7:12ocean highway with a simple soup spoon,
174. 7:15while the boiling desert heat melted
175. 7:18everyone's energy.
176. 7:19Every single drop of fresh drinking
177. 7:22water had to be hauled across endless
178. 7:24sand dunes on the backs of thirsty
179. 7:26camels.
180. 7:27To make this nightmare even worse, a
181. 7:29deadly cholera outbreak tore through the
182. 7:32crowded tents, wiping out thousands of
183. 7:34sick workers in weeks.
184. 7:36Every night, howling desert winds blew
185. 7:39massive waves of sand right back into
186. 7:41the shallow trenches, erasing their
187. 7:43brutal sweat in seconds.
188. 7:45Watching this fragile project, [music]
189. 7:48the British government decided to pull
190. 7:49off a ruthless political attack. They
191. 7:52secretly hated the idea of a French
192. 7:54shortcut to Asia. So, they pressured the
193. 7:57Ottoman Sultan to immediately ban forced
194. 8:00labor under the polite excuse of human
195. 8:02rights.
196. 8:03Suddenly, the endless supply of Egyptian
197. 8:06workers vanished into thin air, and the
198. 8:09world's biggest desert construction site
199. 8:11turned completely silent overnight.
200. 8:14Lesseps stood alone in the scorching
201. 8:16dunes, staring into an unfinished
202. 8:19massive dirt pit with no hands left to
203. 8:22dig it. International newspapers laughed
204. 8:25out loud, declaring his grand dream
205. 8:27totally dead, and mocking him as a
206. 8:30bankrupt fool.
207. 8:31With his money drying up and creditors
208. 8:34knocking on his door, he desperately
209. 8:36needed a high-tech miracle to replace
210. 8:38hundreds of thousands of human arms
211. 8:41before the blowing sand buried him
212. 8:43forever. With no human workers left,
213. 8:46French engineers turned to an ultimate
214. 8:48weapon, the Industrial Revolution.
215. 8:51Massive steam-powered dredging ships,
216. 8:54metal excavators, and mechanical
217. 8:56conveyor belts were shipped directly to
218. 8:58the dry sands.
219. 9:00These clanking iron monsters hissed
220. 9:02thick black smoke into the desert sky,
221. 9:05chewing through rock and sand without
222. 9:07ever needing a drop of drinking water.
223. 9:10What took 10,000 men an entire month of
224. 9:13brutal sweat was now scooped up by a
225. 9:16single steel machine in just a few days.
226. 9:20These roaring mechanical giants tore
227. 9:23through millions of tons of dry earth,
228. 9:25spitting out the desert on both sides.
229. 9:28The Suez Canal transformed overnight
230. 9:31from a tragic graveyard of ancient labor
231. 9:34into the ultimate machine triumph of
232. 9:37modern world. In the year 1869,
233. 9:41the final wall of desert rock was
234. 9:43blasted open, and the Mediterranean Sea
235. 9:46crashed directly into the Red Sea.
236. 9:48European royalty, empresses, and dukes
237. 9:51arrived on luxury yachts for the most
238. 9:54expensive opening party history had ever
239. 9:56seen.
240. 9:57Expensive French champagne flowed like
241. 10:00water across the desert sand, while
242. 10:02fireworks lit up the empty night [music]
243. 10:04sky.
244. 10:05Behind the glittering fireworks and
245. 10:07royal dancing, an economic disaster was
246. 10:10quietly unfolding.
247. 10:12The ruler of Egypt spent so much
248. 10:15borrowed gold on lavish palaces, opera
249. 10:17halls, and endless celebrations that the
250. 10:20entire country went completely broke.
251. 10:24The massive canal was finally open and
252. 10:26functional, but within a few short
253. 10:28years, crushing debts forced Egypt to
254. 10:30hand its entire prize straight over to
255. 10:33the British Empire.
256. 10:35The British controlled the canal for
257. 10:36decades until 1956, when Egypt finally
258. 10:40stepped in, kicked them out, and took
259. 10:42full ownership of the waterway.
260. 10:44Since then, Egypt has been running the
261. 10:46whole operation, making billions every
262. 10:48year.
263. 10:49But with modern cargo ships getting way
264. 10:51too big, and countries looking for
265. 10:53alternative routes,
266. 10:55what do you think will happen to the
267. 10:56Suez Canal in the future?