Suez canal

Historical outline

The Suez Canal is considered to be the shortest link between the east and the west due to its unique geographic location; it is an important international navigation canal linking between the Mediterranean sea at Port said and the red sea at Suez. The idea of linking the Mediterranean sea with the red sea by a canal dates back to 40 centuries as it was pointed out through history starting by the pharaohs era passing by the Islamic era until it was dredged reaching its current condition today.

It is considered to be the first artificial canal to be used in Travel and Trade. The Whole Idea of establishing a canal linking between the red sea and the Mediterranean dates back to the oldest times, as Egypt dredged the firs artificial canal on the planet’s surface. The pharaohs dredged a canal link in between river Nile and the red sea. This canal ran a while and then stopped until Muslims conquered Egypt under the leader ship of Amr-Ebn-El-Aas complying with the orders of Omar Ebn El Khattab. When the Portuguese discovered Ras El Raga El Saleh at the beginning of the 16th century the world trade movement changed making Egypt and Alexandria not considered the heart of it anymore.

After that it was Francis Delicips the one with the idea of re-dredging the Canal in (25 April, 1859) and was formally opened during the ruling of El Khedive Ismail (17 November, 1869) in a major celebration which was attended by most of Europe’s kings and Princes and the license period was 99 years from the date of opening of the canal and then it becomes after that a property of the Egyptian Government, and the French owned most of its stock.

After July 1952 Revolution, president Gamal Abd El Nasser publicized the canal in announcement in (26 July, 1956) making the management of the canal a 100% Egyptian, which enraged the major countries leading to the Triad assault on Egypt in (29 October, 1956) which caused to the closing of the canal and it was reopened in (march 1957) and after that it was closed again ( 1976) due to the ships laying in the bottom of the canal and was not reopened again until (June 1975).