A canal linked the Nile to the Red Sea some 2,400 years before Suez.

500 BC · 767 · 1869 · apart: 2369 years

Persia's Darius I completed it, and with interruptions it was used until AD 767. The Suez Canal, opened in 1869, took a different route.

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The event

• Opening of the Suez Canal1869 · Port Said. On 17 November 1869 the Suez Canal, built under Ferdinand de Lesseps, was opened. Linking the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, it spared ships the voyage around Africa and dramatically shortened the route from Europe to Asia.

5th century BC · 8th century · 19th century

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