How the USA Stole the Panama Canal | Adam Ruins Everything

Animated Adam reveals the true origin story of how the US came to build the Panama Canal. Watch full episodes of Adam Ruins Everything Presents: ReAnimated History on truTV!

Adam Ruins Everything - Adam Conover, CollegeHumor's resident know-it-all and major bummer, takes on society's biggest misconceptions.

[yaumelepire]

And at this point, Great Britain thought: "Nice to see the children are well!"

[Sleepy_Cattt]

A man, A plan, A canal, Panama.
Spelled backwards says:
A man, A plan, A canal, Panama.

[ivanroberto]

When I heard the narrator, all i think about is Jerry Smith

[TheSquirrelbeast]

Ok, panamanian here. The video is overly simplified, but the gist of it is mostly right. Colombia actually did agreed to the construction of the Canal and signed the Herran-Hay treaty, but it was rejected by the colombian Senate because it gave the US sovereignty over the land for 99 years. The Hay-Bunau Varilla treaty (that no panamanian signed) later gave the land away literally for eternity. However, several national movements (mostly lead by students) pushed for Panamá to reclaim sovereignty of our country. In 1964 a group of students marched into Balboa High School in the Panama Canal Zone to enforce an agreement that the Panama flag should wave in all schools. They were beaten by US citizens and the Panama flag they were carrying was torn to pieces. This led to a national revolt. The US army quelled the revolt by deploying tanks and killing dissenters. This prompted the president to formally break diplomatic relations with the US (a first for any latin american nation with US occupation).

This generated a huge momentum, and finally in 1977 the Torrijos-Carter treaty was signed and the transition back to Panama began. The whole process ended in December 1999, and since then the Canal has been operated solely by panamanians.

[PhobosTK]

That's one of the skills they've mastered perfectly: 1)instigate a coup d'etat, 2)take control of the country, 3)steal all valuable resources, 4)make a few fun videos about it.

[adrianbrogan]

I love that I can imagine Jerry as the narrarator and how he's wrong about everything bc it's the same voice actor lmao

[KenshinZoro]

As a Panamanian this history has a lot a plot holes, don't let this distract you from the fact French started the canal and the USA continued

[queenawesomegaming]

This entire show just needs to be called "Adam Ruins America"

[Larimmar]

Could you do a "Adam Ruins Everything" about Cruise ship holidays?

[plxton]

Too short, I wanted to hear more about the construction and the economic income Panama lost etc

[sirhades]

I don't think you can tell the story of the Panama canal without at least mentioning the 1000 days war. The reason Colombia lost Panama was not only because the USA send a big army but because just recently we had bleed to freaking death in a civil war that Panama didn't want to be part of. At that point in history Panama even had engraved in the Constitution of 1886 about how the Itsmo would be ruled by special laws. It wasn't mainly that USA wanted a canal and basically divided a peacefull country, they took advantage of the inestability inside Colombia to do it.

[ketchupchibi]

I'm a latina living in the USA and is sad that in almost every class I have the united states OF america are picture as some kind of angel that save all the continent, when the truth is that USA have caused a Lot of problems in the continen just for economical benefits, like the "creation" of the panamá canal and Allende's coup in Chile

[veridian]

Good thing Katie bought the canal during the Ming Dynasty to boost cocaine transport

[abramcrowder]

This video would have been much better if you included the earlier attempts to build the canal and why it was difficult to build it there.

[TenkuraDomo]

America: "Why does everyone hate us?" "We are great!"

[CaptainPIanet]

This was actually informative. I thought he was just going to talk about the thousands that died to disease digging the canal

[outmywritemind]

Give the animation crew a raise, how do they make Adam look like every animal and inanimate object and nail it every time

[jrrpom]

Im actually from Colombia and i am glad to see somebody sharing the true history, we get this teached on our schools

[oxtian]

Adam: my history teacher
The Narrator: a smarty pants that gets roasted by Adam aka my history teacher
also if this gets highlighted then wot

[thatrandomguyontheinternet]

French: ‘builds Suez Canal’
USA : cool
French : ‘builds a large part of Panama canal’
USA : You mean mine