The Historic Push to Build the Suez Canal Led by French Diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps

How a tenacious French diplomat undertook the monumental construction of the Suez Canal

'Suez, a historic canal' (2/6). Efforts to connect the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea followed one after another from antiquity onward. But it was not until the arrival of Ferdinand de Lesseps – who was neither a scientist nor an engineer – that the project became a reality.