Ferdinand de Lesseps

Who was Ferdinand de Lesseps?

Ferdinand Marie, Vicomte de Lesseps GCSI was a French diplomat and later developer of the Suez Canal, which in 1869 joined the Mediterranean and Red Seas, substantially reducing sailing distances and times between the West and the East.

He attempted to repeat this success with an effort to build a Panama Canal at sea-level during the 1880s, but the project was devastated by epidemics of malaria and yellow fever in the area, as well as beset by financial problems, and the planned de Lesseps Panama Canal was never completed. Eventually, the project was bought out by the United States who changed the design to a non-sea-level canal with locks, which was completed in 1914.