The Primo was the first vessel of considerable tonnage to make use of the Suez Canal #OnThisDay in 1867. Here is a #funwithfundas of some Suez Canal facts. Also, what's the #SuezCanal got to do with the #StatueOfLiberty ? Read on to learn more. (1/14)

Primo was a vessel of eighty tonnes. On 17 February 1867, it passed through the canal from the #MediterraneanSea to the #RedSea shipping between Europe and Asia without having to go around the African continent. This was two years before the inauguration of the canal. (2/14)

Construction of the canal had begun in April 1859. At first, the digging was done by hand with picks and shovels. Later, European workers with dredgers and steam shovels arrived. (3/14)

A French company led by #FerdinanddeLesseps contracted with Egypt to build the Suez Canal. After ten years of work, the canal opened in 1869. (4/14)

It is estimated that 1.5 million Egyptians worked on the canal and 1,25,000 died. Labour disputes and a cholera epidemic slowed construction. (5/14)

When first opened, the canal was a channel barely 26 feet deep, 72 feet wide at the bottom, and 200 to 300 feet wide at the surface. After many groundings, the canal saw successive widening and deepening improvements. (6/14)

During the #SixDayWar between Egypt and Israel , the canal was shut down and blocked on either side by mines and scuttled ships. 15 international shipping vessels would remain stranded in the waterway for eight years. (7/14)

Sculptor #FrédéricAugusteBartholdi tried to convince de Lesseps and the Egyptian government to let him build a sculpture called “Egypt Bringing Light to Asia” at its Mediterranean entrance. (8/14)

He envisioned a 90-foot-tall statue of a woman in Egyptian peasant robes and holding a torch, which would also serve as a #lighthouse to guide ships into the canal. (9/14)

The project never happened, but Bartholdi continued shopping the idea for his statue. Years later, he finally unveiled a completed version. Officially called “Liberty Enlightening the World,” the monument is better known to us as the @StatueEllisNPS . (10/14)

After the successful completion of the Suez Canal, de Lesseps later turned his attention toward cutting a canal across the Isthmus of Panama in Central America . (11/14)

Thousands died during its construction in the sweltering, disease-ridden jungle. The team burned through nearly $260 million without ever completing the project. (12/14)

Today, the canal is managed, operated, and maintained by the #SuezCanalAuthority @SuezAuthorityEG. Egypt’s revenues from the Suez Canal in 2020 was $5.61 billion. (13/14)

Roughly 50 ships pass through the waters of the Suez Canal every day. In 2019, 18,880 vessels made the transit. In February 2020, just before @WHO announced #Covid19 as a global pandemic, 1,525 vessels crossed the canal. (14/14)

@venkyQM @VivekKarthikeya @avoidinmyheart @cidfromkerala