Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: What was the first vessel to cross the Panama Canal?
SS "Ancon was an American cargo and passenger ship that became the first ship to officially transit the Panama Canal in 1914. The ship was built as Shawmut" for the Boston Steamship Company by the Maryland Steel Company, Sparrows Point, Maryland and put into Pacific service operating out of Puget Sound ports for Japan, China and the Philippine Islands. "Shawmut" and sister ship "Tremont" were two of the largest United States commercial ships in service at the time and the company eventually found them too expensive to operate.
James Brindley was brought in for his technical expertise and suggested varying the route of the proposed canal away from Salford and across the Irwell into Manchester. A second Act was secured for this variance, which included an aqueduct to cross the Irwell. This was built relatively quickly for the time; work commenced in September 1760 and the first boat crossed on 17 July 1761. The canal opened in 1761 and along with the stone aqueduct at Barton-upon-Irwell, was considered a major engineering achievement. One writer said that when finished, it "will be the most extraordanary thing in the kingdom, if not in Europe. The boats in some places are to go underground, and in other places over a navigable river, without communicating with its waters ..."
In 1903, the U.S. aided the secession of Panama from the Republic of Colombia. The secession was engineered by a Panamanian faction backed by the Panama Canal Company, a French–US corporation whose aim was the construction of a waterway across the Isthmus of Panama thus connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. In 1903, the U.S. signed the Hay-Herrán Treaty with Colombia, granting the United States use of the Isthmus of Panama in exchange for financial compensation. amidst the Thousand Days' War. The Panama Canal was already under construction, and the Panama Canal Zone was carved out and placed under United States sovereignty. The US did not transfer the zone back to Panama until 2000.
P&O first introduced passenger services in 1844, advertising sea tours to destinations such as Gibraltar, Malta and Athens, sailing from Southampton. The forerunner of modern cruise holidays, these voyages were the first of their kind, and have led to P&O Cruises being recognised as the world's oldest cruise line. The company later introduced round trips to destinations such as Alexandria and Constantinople and underwent rapid expansion in the later half of the 19th century, with its ships becoming larger and more luxurious. Notable ships of the era include the SS "Ravenna" built in 1880, which became the first ship to be built with a total steel superstructure, and the SS "Valetta" built in 1889, which was the first ship to use electric lights.
By the late nineteenth century, technological advances and commercial pressure allowed construction to begin in earnest. Noted canal engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps led an initial attempt by France to build a sea-level canal. Beset by cost overruns due to the severe underestimation of the difficulties in excavating the rugged Panama land, heavy personnel losses in Panama due to tropical diseases, and political corruption in France surrounding the financing of the massive project, the project succeeded in only partially completing the canal.
During World War II, the canal proved a vital part of the U.S. military strategy, allowing ships to transfer easily between the Atlantic and Pacific. Politically, the Canal remained a territory of the United States until 1977, when the Torrijos–Carter Treaties began the process of transferring territorial control of the Panama Canal Zone to Panama, a process completed on 31 December 1999.
In 1904 when the construction of the Panama Canal was taken over by the United States for the failure of the French company, will again resort to the West Indian worker. Although between 1904 and 1914 the vast majority of Afro-West Indians who arrived in Panama did a one-year contract with the idea of returning to their home islands once the offshore project, after construction of the canal many Afro-Antillean stayed in Panama. Afro-West Indians who remained in Panama many got jobs in the Canal Zone and became the largest immigrant group in Panama. On the subject of Afro-Antillean Panama, Leslie B. Rout said that when the canal was opened in 1914, some 20,000 African-West Indians remained in Panama.
Colombia, France, and later the United States controlled the territory surrounding the canal during construction. The US continued to control the canal and surrounding Panama Canal Zone until the 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties provided for handover to Panama. After a period of joint American–Panamanian control, in 1999, the canal was taken over by the Panamanian government. It is now managed and operated by the government-owned Panama Canal Authority.
The SS "Great Eastern" was launched in 1858 and was six times bigger than any ship before. She was the third ship designed by Brunel. The "Great Eastern" had six masts as well as coal fired engines driving paddle wheels. It was designed to carry enough coal to travel to Australia and return, and was intended to carry 4,000 passengers (or 10,000 soldiers). Work started on the ship in 1854 but there were many problems in building and launching the ship. After fitting out at Deptford she undertook trials in September 1859 but the heater attached to the paddle engine boilers exploded. As the ship had been fitted with watertight bulkheads she survived and was repaired. Because of the opening of the Suez Canal, she was not used on the Australian route as envisaged but on the Atlantic crossings. Passengers did not like the rolling in storms and she was sold to a cable laying company after only six years. The "Great Eastern" was used to lay the first transatlantic telegraph cable and many others subsequently. She was broken up in 1888.
In May 1919, a crew of United States Navy aviators flew the NC-4 from New York State to Lisbon, Portugal, over the course of 19 days. This included time for stops of numerous repairs and for crewmen's rest, with stops along the way in Massachusetts, Nova Scotia (on the mainland), Newfoundland, and twice in the Azores Islands. Then its flight from the Azores to Lisbon completed the first transatlantic flight between North America and Europe, and two more flights from Lisbon to northwestern Spain to Plymouth, England, completed the first flight between North America and Great Britain. This accomplishment was somewhat eclipsed in the minds of the public by the first "nonstop" transatlantic flight, made by the Royal Air Force pilots John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown two weeks later.
The Panama Canal Zone was an unorganized US territory located within the Republic of Panama. It was established under the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty in 1903 and disestablished in 1979 under the Torrijos–Carter Treaties. Panama gained full control over the Panama Canal in 1999.
The United States developed the first aircraft carrier, the USS "Remembrance". This ship first sailed in 1920 and assisted the Irish government in suppressing a pro-British rebellion in Ulster. The "Remembrance", for many years, was the only U.S. aircraft carrier. The Pacific War saw the first naval battles where the combatants engaged one another with planes instead of ships. During the Second Great War, several escort carriers were built from converted merchant ship hulls.
Following the United States' acquisition of Alta California in 1846 and the Oregon Territory in 1848, following the Mexican–American War and with the prospective movement of many more settlers to and from the West Coast, the United States again turned its attention to securing a safe, reliable, and speedy link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In 1846 the United States signed a treaty with Colombia (then the Republic of New Granada) by which the United States guaranteed Colombian sovereignty over Panama and was authorized to build a railroad or canal at the Panamanian isthmus, guaranteeing its open transit.
The first full-time cruise ship was "Ceylon," a P&O liner converted in 1881. Up to this point ship owners had occasionally used liners for off-season cruising. From 1881 the growth of the cruise industry proceeded slowly until the 1970s when major shipping operators became badly affected by the rise in popularity of longhaul jet air travel. Faced with falling demand for their mail and passengers services they turned their business to holiday cruises – voyages that usually end where they begin, providing short leisure visits to other ports on the way. In the case of Southampton at the time ships affected included Cunard's "QE2" and the P&O vessels SS "Oriana" and SS "Canberra": all originally built as fast liners, they began to offer a growing variety of cruises. Through the 1990s cruising's growing popularity saw huge increases in ship size and numbers as well as terminal capacity, with Southampton becoming one of the busiest cruise ports in the world.
Christopher Columbus inadvertently landed on the island during his first voyage across the Atlantic in 1492, where his flagship, the "Santa Maria", sank after running aground on December 25. A contingent of men were left at an outpost christened La Navidad, on the north coast of present-day Puerto Plata. On his return the following year, Columbus quickly established a second compound farther east in present-day Dominican Republic, La Isabela after the destruction of La Navidad.
In early 1913, Benoist and Jannus initiated the development of a large new flying boat capable of transatlantic flight. When in early 1914 the "Daily Mail" of London offered a $50,000 prize for the first transatlantic flight of under 72 hours, the two men developed the Type XV flying boat, capable of remaining aloft for 40 hours with six passengers on board. It was ready to fly in 1915, but by then the outbreak of World War I in late July 1914 had made a transatlantic attempt impossible. Benoist Aircraft and the St. Louis Car Company jointly proposed the construction of 5,000 Type XVs for the United Kingdom for use on antisubmarine patrols, but the British preferred Curtiss flying boats and nothing came of the idea.
The first modern cruise, which defined the journey not just as transport but as the actual reward, commenced on 22 January 1891, when the SS "Auguste Victoria" (named after the German empress) set sail to cruise the Mediterranean for six weeks. The competitors initially sniggered at Ballin, who organized and supervised the voyage personally, but the project was a huge success. In order to accommodate the growing demand, another three of the SS "Auguste Victoria"'s sister ships operated as cruise liners, and in 1899, the Hamburg-America Line commissioned Blohm & Voss to construct the first purpose-built cruise ship, the "Prinzessin Victoria Luise". It was the very first cruise ship, one exclusively tailored for the needs of well-to-do passengers.
Until the development of the steamboat, transportation of goods on major rivers was generally accomplished either with barges or flatboats, floated downstream or pushed upstream with poles or by hand using overhanging tree limbs. On the Mississippi River, most shipping was down river on log rafts or wooden boats that were dismantled and sold as lumber in the vicinity of New Orleans. Steam-powered river navigation began in 1811-12, between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and New Orleans. Inland steam navigation rapidly expanded in the following decades. Railroads appeared before the Civil War, though at first were used to link waterways. After the Civil War, railroads took over most of the hauling of goods.
The steam-powered cargo liner developed in the mid-19th century with the advancement of technology allowing bigger steamships to be built. As cargo liners were generally faster than tramp cargo ships, they were used for the transport of perishable and high-value goods, as well as providing a passenger service. At first, they were mostly used in Europe and America as well as across the Atlantic Ocean between Europe and America. Longer routes, such as that to Oceania, mainly remained in the hands of sailing ships a little bit longer, due to the inefficiency of the steamship of the time, until the late-1860s when the 1869 opening of the Suez Canal put sailships to disadvantage.
In the Pacific Ocean, Jorge de Menezes (c. 1498–?), discovered Papua New Guinea. García Jofre de Loaísa (1490–1526), discovered the Marshall Islands. Explorations of the Americas began with the initial discovery of America by Christopher Columbus (1451–1506), who led a Castilian (Spanish) expedition across the Atlantic, discovering America. After the discovery of America by Columbus, a number of important expeditions were sent out to explore the Western Hemisphere. This included Juan Ponce de León (1474–1521), who discovered and mapped the coast of Florida; Vasco Núñez de Balboa (c. 1475–1519), who was the first European to view the Pacific Ocean from American shores (after crossing the Isthmus of Panama) confirming that America was a separate continent from Asia; Aleixo Garcia (14?–1527), who explored the territories of present-day southern Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia, crossing the Chaco and reaching the Andes (near Sucre).
Though Columbus was wrong about the number of degrees of longitude that separated Europe from the Far East and about the distance that each degree represented, he did possess valuable knowledge about the trade winds, which would prove to be the key to his successful navigation of the Atlantic Ocean. During his first voyage in 1492, the brisk trade winds from the east, commonly called "easterlies", propelled Columbus's fleet for five weeks, from the Canary Islands to The Bahamas. The precise first land sighting and landing point was San Salvador Island. To return to Spain against this prevailing wind would have required several months of an arduous sailing technique, called beating, during which food and drinkable water would probably have been exhausted.
In October 1960, as part of Operation Deep Freeze, she departed Boston, passed through the Panama Canal, crossed the Pacific, visited New Zealand and McMurdo sound. Leaving Antarctica, she traveled the Indian Ocean, came through the Suez Canal, crossed the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean to return home in May 1961. This tour made the Eastwind the first cutter ever to circumnavigate the globe. Two mountains in Antarctica, Mount Schmidtman and Mount Naab, were named after her captains during this period: Captain R.D. Schmidtman, USCG commanded the vessel in 1960, and Captain Joseph Naab, Jr., USCG commanded her during 1961 and 1962.
In 1966 she left Boston MA in September for Operation Deep Freeze '67' returned April 1967. Captain William Benkert, Commanding.
In 2014, the Panama Canal expansion project is due to be completed. A 15-year-long project, it will double the canal's capacity and allow it to carry the bigger container vessels and bulk ships which have become favored by the shipping lines since the canal first opened in 1914. Such larger craft currently cannot use the port. Instead, much of the shipping container traffic currently uses West Coast ports such as Los Angeles and Long Beach, California. The containers then travel overland via either railroad or by trucking. By coming through the widened Panama Canal to the Gulf of Mexico and sailing on to East Coast ports, these vessels will be able to reduce shipping time and expense to reach major U.S. markets along the Mississippi River basin and the points east of there. Much of such rail traffic now changes at "gateway" railhead cities such as Chicago and St. Louis, from western class 1 railroads such as Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Sante Fe Railway (BNSF) to other railroads.
The Panama Railway also operated a significant shipping line, connecting its service with New York and San Francisco. It ran a Central American line of steamships linking Nicaragua, Costa Rica, San Salvador, and Guatemala to Panama City. The shipping service was greatly expanded when canal construction began. Ships included the SS "Salvador", SS "Guatemala", SS "Cristobel", and , which became the first of the ships to cross the completed canal in 1914.
In 1904 the United States took over the license to build and operate the canal. The choice to use locks and an artificial lake (Gatun) meant that the old railway route from 1855 had to be changed because it followed the Chagres River valley, which would be flooded by the lake. Also, the railway would be extended and altered continuously for the building process. The stock of the Panama Railway Company, vital in canal construction, was entirely controlled by the United States Secretary of War.
In 2006, the Autoridad del Canal de Panamá (the Panama Canal Authority, or ACP) proposed a plan creating a third lane of locks using part of the abandoned 1940s approach canals. Following a referendum, work began in 2007 and the expanded canal began commercial operations on June 26, 2016. After a two-year delay, the new locks allow the transit of Panamax ships (which have a greater cargo capacity than the original locks can handle). The first ship to cross the canal through the third set of locks was a Panamax container ship, the Chinese-owned "Cosco Shipping Panama". The cost of the expansion was estimated at $5.25 billion.