The Suez Canal: from the 1859 digging to the 1975 reopening

Background

The Suez Canal Authority records that digging of the canal began on 25 April 1859 at Al-Farama, the city now called Port Said, with 20,000 Egyptians taking part in the groundbreaking. The canal was inaugurated on 17 November 1869. The Authority lists nationalisation as the most notable turning point in its history, followed by the canal's closure after the 1967 war and its reopening in June 1975. The idea of linking the Red Sea and the Mediterranean is traced to the Egyptian Pharaoh Senausert III of the Twelfth Dynasty. Necho II attempted a re-digging in 610 BC, Darius I in 510 BC and Ptolemy II in 285 BC, and the Roman Emperor Trajan re-dug it around 98 AD. Amr Ibn El-A'as reopened it for navigation in 641 AD.