Uploaded February 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
With over 250 million tons of cargo passing along its length every year, the Panama Canal is the biggest canal in the America’s. The 5-billion-dollar infrastructure expansion project completed in 2017 doubled the waterway’s capacity, giving a new lease of life to this vital transport artery. Its construction relied on a series of great leaps in technology. In this film we explore the key historic canals that made each engineering breakthrough. Using computer generated animation we reveal the incredible stories behind France’s Briare Canal, the UK’s Bridgewater and Manchester Ship Canals, and the record-breaking Panama Canal. We focus on the innovations that allowed them to grow in size. Four ingenious leaps forward that enabled canals to evolve from BIG, to BIGGER, into the America’s BIGGEST.
00:00 – Introduction
04:06 – Climbing Hills – Briare Canal
18:15 – Water – Bridgewater Canal
29:51 – Excavation – Manchester Ship Canal
38:49 – Navigation – Panama Canal
Episode from the “Big Bigger Biggest” documentary series exploring the engineering breakthroughs that have enabled us to develop some of the largest structures in existence.
Subscribe to Element 18 – bit.ly/337R2uO
With over 250 million tons of cargo passing along its length every year, the Panama Canal is the biggest canal in the America’s. The 5-billion-dollar infrastructure expansion project completed in 2017 doubled the waterway’s capacity, giving a new lease of life to this vital transport artery. Its construction relied on a series of great leaps in technology. In this film we explore the key historic canals that made each engineering breakthrough. Using computer generated animation we reveal the incredible stories behind France’s Briare Canal, the UK’s Bridgewater and Manchester Ship Canals, and the record-breaking Panama Canal. We focus on the innovations that allowed them to grow in size. Four ingenious leaps forward that enabled canals to evolve from BIG, to BIGGER, into the America’s BIGGEST.
00:00 – Introduction
04:06 – Climbing Hills – Briare Canal
18:15 – Water – Bridgewater Canal
29:51 – Excavation – Manchester Ship Canal
38:49 – Navigation – Panama Canal
Episode from the “Big Bigger Biggest” documentary series exploring the engineering breakthroughs that have enabled us to develop some of the largest structures in existence.
Subscribe to Element 18 – bit.ly/337R2uO
