The first attempts to link the Red Sea and the Mediterranean by means of a canal are usually attributed to Necho II (610-595 BC) of the XXVI Dynasty. Herodotus claims that 120,000 workers had died before the project was abandoned after an oracle predicted that only Egypt's foes would benefit from it. Sure enough, it was the Persian emperor Darius , around 500 BC, who completed the first canal in the region, linking the Red Sea and the Great Bitter Lake, whence an older waterway created by Ramses II connected with Bubastis on the Nile and thence to the Mediterranean.

 

Refined by the Ptolemies and Trajan (who added an extension leading to Babylon-in-Egypt), this system of waterways was restored by Amr following the Muslim conquest and was used for shipping corn to Arabia until the eighth century, when it was deliberately abandoned to starve out rebels in Medina. Although the Venetians, Crusaders and Ottomans all considered renewing the old system, the idea of a canal running direct between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean was first mooted - and then vetoed - by Napoleon's engineers, who miscalculated a difference of ten metres between the two sea levels.

The discovery of their error, in the 1840s, encouraged a junior French consul, Ferdinand de Lesseps , to present his own plan to Said Pasha, who approved it despite British objections. ("It cannot be made, it shall not be made; but if it were made there would be a war between England and France for the possession of Egypt," Palmerston asserted.)

Work began at the Mediterranean end in 1859 and continued throughout the reign of Said's successor, Ismail (hence the names of Port Said and Ismailiya). Of the twenty thousand Egyptians employed in the construction of the Suez Canal , a great many died from accidents or cholera, while Ismail himself went bankrupt attempting to finance his one-third share of the £19 million sterling investment, most of which went on bankers' charges.

In 1875, Ismail was forced to sell his shares to Britain for a mere £4 million sterling and the Suez Canal effectively became an imperial concession. By appealing to the Rothschilds for a loan over dinner, Prime Minister Disraeli bought Ismail's shares before France could make an offer, and reported to Queen Victoria: "You have it, Madam." When the canal finally opened in 1888, its vast profits went abroad with the Suez Canal Company , which acted as a state within a state, while two world wars saw the Canal Zone transformed into the largest military base on earth.

Following the end of World War II nationalist protests against the British presence grew, and guerrilla attacks in the Zone led to the British assault on Ismailiya's police barracks that sparked "Black Saturday" in Cairo. After the 1952 Revolution, Egypt's new leaders demanded the withdrawal of British forces and a greater share of the canal's revenue, and when the West refused to make loans to finance the Aswan High Dam, Nasser announced the canal's nationalization (July 26, 1956). Britain and France tried to hamper this process, smearing Nasser as an "Arab Hitler". Israel's advance into Sinai that October became the agreed pretext for them to "safeguard" the canal by bombarding and invading its cities. But by standing firm and appealing to outraged world opinion, Nasser emerged victorious from the Suez Crisis .

The battered Canal cities had hardly recovered when the 1967 War with Israel caused further damage and blocked the canal with sunken vessels. The canal was closed and Suez was evacuated during the "War of Attrition" that dragged on until 1969, while Israel fortified the Bar-Lev Line along the east bank, which the Egyptians stormed during the October War of 1973 (known as the 10th Ramadan or Yom Kippur war, respectively, to Arabs and Israelis). Although the canal was reopened to shipping in 1975, both sides remained dug in on opposite banks until 1982, when Israel withdrew from Sinai. While the canal was closed, supertankers were built to travel around Africa - and were too large to pass through Suez once it reopened.

Despite this, the canal today handles up to ninety ships a day, carrying 14 percent of the world's trade; the direction of traffic is alternated, with an average transit time of fifteen hours. At 167km long, it's the third longest canal in the world and the longest without locks; current plans to deepen the canal and double its width render further statistics pointless