In 1920, the Panama Canal was formally dedicated. It had taken more than 30 years to overcome the enormous engineering challenges and complete at a cost of $347 million. The first ship had, in fact, travelled through six years earlier when the Panama Canal opened to shipping on 15 Aug 1914. At that time, the world scarcely noticed the event since German troops were driving across Belgium toward Paris and the newspapers relegated the Panama story to their back pages; the greatest engineering project in the history of the world had been dwarfed by the totality of World War I. Path Between The Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, by David McCullough. - book suggestion.