it slightly damaged the torch. it has been closed to the public ever since with no plans of reopening it. >> thank you. yeah. it was a fleeting moment. there were accounts at the time of people going up all the way. there was a woman even -- women were not invited to the inaugural, other than bartholdi insisted that his wife go. ferdinand insisted that his 13-year-old daughter also be allowed to attend. but no other women were allowed to go. on the day of the inaugural, one woman went to the island and actually climbed up to the torch. it was in the papers and everything about how she had done it. she was quickly hustled off the island. there was a brief period when they could do that. anyone else? [applause] thank you.

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films that help tell the story of the 20th century. ♪ >> the panama canal 22 years ago. first, we go to the bottom of things and find ourselves at the world-famous gridiron cup, which perhaps is more familiar to you. now we are traveling along some of the 160 miles of track that were laid down at the bottom of the canal. be shippedly had to as the shovels dug away at mother earth. modern liners afloat on a watery bridge that rises 25 feet from where these rails are. in the distance now, the lines

of tracks are to be seen, and also one gets an idea of the width of the canal. originally specified to be 200 feet in width at the bottom, president roosevelt, tr that was, wanted the dimensions changed to 300 feet crossing the united states at extra 13 millions of dollars and well worth it. local and white labor were employed. the white labor being called the gold standard. of thesenment kept one nave of signalman, flag and hanscom at every switch. it had to. loaded with dirt one on its way. it was almost impossible to keep enough hands to tax the capacity. we don't want to bore you with figures, but the government used over 300 locomotives and over 4000 cars in this work. now we are approaching the most

famous part. first, a full view showing something of its best with steam shovels biting away at it and each chewing off cubic yards. these particular shovels are working on the famous coca rock just life. google rocket in spanish means caracha in spanish means cockroach, and this was disturbing. the cucaracha in october 19 seven slid right across the bottom, and four today's, builds an average of two feet every 24 hours, but that was just one of the many things that came up in .he building of the canal in all the time the shovels kept nibbling away. this is one of the locomotives used to all the dirt train. you might add as we wait for one of these, each with 21 loaded cars to pass, that the canal has

experienced some 20 slides also, totaling 25 million yards of earth and covering 220 acres of track and destroying 200 miles. some of these flights came during dry season and they were caused by faults in the earth because of the removal of side walls and the cutting of the canal. in short, there was nothing to keep the cut. a few moments ago, we said the government used 101 shovels. some of them were left by the french, builders of the suez canal, for started work in 1882. he is, however, our good old american shovels, and they are working here at the lowest point of the cut, the very real bottom of the panama canal. the loading of the empty dirt train the done very quickly with those big dippers, and don't worry, the shovels always himself out. dig themselves out.

this is one of the rock drills use for setting up dynamite shock. 6 million pounds of explosive per year were used in the giganticf mr this ditch. , to famous spots come on the left golddiggers hill and on the right contractors hill. it is said that it is from here that balboa first install the pacific ocean, but that was a long time ago, and you know how people will talk. at each end of the suspension bridge around 1910, there were sizable communities, contractors camp. with the completion of the work, they were demolished in the vestige remains of their presence. it is like a desert spring and -- the shoppers river. the man-made low-lying dam at the end of the canal.

once again, we view the face, showing how it looked in 1912 at its highest point. -- the cost, it is difficult to get figures, but at an estimated cost of some 375 million of dollars. we know that they all look alike, but this big brood was the shovel that dug its way through the entire length of the canal from one end to the other. , we aree shovels dig standing in the top of the dam looking south of the tune lake. eastbound ships are tied up. the ships are lowered 85 feet to the level of the atlantic. swings in slow panorama, and on the hill and on the hill in the distance, the administration buildings come into view. this is where all of these foreign aid for the building of the dam.

this bridge like structure is one of the two emergency locks. should anything go wrong with a regular lock gate, one of these can be swung across the loc in question, and they will drop a big steel plates to form a compliment or a gait. and here is one of the pair of upper locks. look at the size of it. 1000 feet long, 110 feet wide and 83 feet deep. 2 million yards of tons were used on a canal, and he worked up from 1906 to 1911. now i clear view of all six locks is shown just weeks prior to their completion. here the other emergency locks. the regular lock gate can be closed in two minutes, although tonsway some four t400 to 700 each. to give you a better idea of the size of these locks, look at the

small figure of the man in the middle distance. there is the panama canal from the underside, one of the greatest pieces of man-made construction ever known. the first talk was in 1825 when henry clay appointed a committee to look into the idea, and through which the first ship pass on august 3, 1913 in opened officially august 15 the same year. the panama canal, a monument to the american people. >> by this time in the war, a lot of soldiers had been away from their homes for about three they to four years, and were saying before ms. falling to pieces, there were patrollers in the area taking supplies from us, when are you going to come home, so there is a large problem with desertions at this time, and they were not distortion -- they were not

desertions by soldiers not wanting to go into battle, it was a heart strings pulled by family really needed them going home. what did had imposed was a fairly strict set of orders that deserters would be sometimes shot and definitely the punishment -- several occurrences of this happening. more route was so low about this miserables" came out, of course in book form. several troops were in a richmond shop and thought on a shelf and said oh, that is us. >> every weekend, we are marking the 150th anniversary of the civil war about the people and events that shaped the area saturday at 6:00 and 10:00 p.m. eastern here on american history tv on c-span3. >> all week watch book tv in time tuesday through

friday at 8:00. book tv features a wide range of topics, including foreign of bookiran, coverage festivals from across the country and the best sellers year.his let us know about the program watching. 626-3400 or202- e-mail us. like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. >> next on american history tv, to mark the 25th anniversary the fall of the berlin wall, events.ns discuss the the wall begin to fall after protests in pro-soviet eastern europe. conference at the society of for historians of american foreign relations is