Opening of the Panama Canal
Ships no longer have to round Cape Horn
Ferdinand de Lesseps's French attempt in the 1880s failed after malaria and yellow fever killed, by various estimates, more than 20,000 people. The US started again in 1904, beat the mosquitoes and built a system of locks with the artificial Gatún Lake. The 82-km canal opened on 15 August 1914, cutting the New York to San Francisco voyage by almost 13,000 km. It was handed to Panama in 1999.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 1914–1918 World War I — same year
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — 4 years later
- 1920 League of Nations founded — 6 years later
- 1939–1945 World War II — 25 years later
Europe
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — 9 years earlier
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — 5 years later
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — 14 years later
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — 19 years later
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — 22 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1917 October Revolution — 3 years later
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — 3 years later
- 1917 February Revolution — 3 years later
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — 15 years later
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — 22 years later
Middle East
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — 6 years earlier
- 1908 Young Turk Revolution — 6 years earlier
- 1915 Armenian genocide — 1 year later
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — 2 years later
- 1916–1918 The Arab Revolt — 2 years later
Africa
- 1897 The British sack Benin City — 17 years earlier
- 1904–1908 The Herero and Nama genocide — 10 years earlier
- 1922 Discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb — 8 years later
- 1935–1937 Italy invades Ethiopia — 21 years later
Asia
- 1894–1895 First Sino-Japanese War — 20 years earlier
- 1896–1898 Philippine Revolution — 18 years earlier
- 1911–1912 Xinhai Revolution — 3 years earlier
- 1923 Great Kantō earthquake — 9 years later
- 1931 China floods — 17 years later
Oceania
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — 21 years earlier
- 1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom — 21 years earlier
- 1911 Amundsen reaches the South Pole — 3 years earlier
- 1912 The death of Scott's polar party — 2 years earlier
- 1936 Death of the last thylacine — 22 years later
Alive at the time
- Thomas Edison (aged 67)
- Nikola Tesla (aged 58)
- Marie Curie (aged 47)
- Mahatma Gandhi (aged 45)
- Vladimir Lenin (aged 44)
- Ernest Rutherford (aged 43)
- Winston Churchill (aged 40)
- Joseph Stalin (aged 36)
- Albert Einstein (aged 35)
- Pablo Picasso (aged 33)