It’s Armistice Day, November 11th, in thenation's capital. It is a brisk day at Arlington National Cemetery. Dignitaries stand silently on the third anniversaryof the ending of World War I, watching as a single white casket is lowered into a marbledtomb. In attendance is President Calvin Coolidge,former President Woodrow Wilson, Supreme Court Justice (as well as former President) WilliamHoward Taft, Chief Plenty Coups, and hundreds of dedicated United States servicemen. As the casket settles on its final restingplace in the tomb, upon a thin layer of French soil, three salvos are fired. A bugler plays taps and, with the final note,comes a 21 gun salute. The smoke clears and eyes dry as the UnknownSoldier from World War I is laid to rest; the first unknown soldier to be officiallyhonored in this manner in American history. The United States’ allies in World War I,France and Britain, were the first countries to practice the concept of burying an “unknownsoldier.” World W...
It’s perhaps the most effective shortcutin the world. Slicing through the dense jungles of CentralAmerica, the Panama Canal bisects the continent, carving an 80km path that joins the Atlanticto the Pacific. For ships that pass through its intricatesystem of locks, it can chop up to 12,500 km off their journey - a time saving thatputs even Egypt’s Suez Canal to shame. When construction was finally completed in1914, it was the most expensive infrastructure project ever undertaken, and is still oneof the engineering wonders of the modern world. Yet the tale of the Panama Canal is more thanjust the tale of a whole bunch of guys getting together to decide how to get boats from portA to port B in record time. It’s also a tale of a dream. Of a dream so big - so unimaginably vast - thatit persisted for centuries; and of the nightmares that were unleashed in pursuit of that dream. In the video today, we take a look at theepic story that is the history of the Panama Canal, a story stu...
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