Back in the day, some American bigwigs wanted to dig a canal to connect the two oceans, but they couldn't agree on where to do it – in Panama, or in Nicaragua. A lot of them thought Nicaragua was a better bet, because the French had been trying to make a canal in Panama for like 20 years, and they sucked at it. They had to deal with a lot of rain and nasty diseases that killed people.
There was also this drama with Panama breaking up with Colombia and becoming its own country in 1903. If America went with Panama, it could piss off Colombia, who wouldn't be happy with America doing business in their ex's land. Nicaragua, on the other hand, was chill and had a lake that would make the digging easier.
This whole thing was a big mess for Congress for a long time. In 1902, this French dude named Philippe Buanu-Varilla decided to convince Congress to stick with the Panama Canal, instead of starting over in Nicaragua. Buanu-Varilla was actually an engineer and an investor in the French Panama Canal project, so he wanted to save his work and money. He teamed up with an American guy named William Nelson Cromwell to lobby Congress to go with Panama.
The smoking volcano Mt. Momotombo was something that Buanu-Varilla wanted to use, to make Congress think that building a canal in Nicaragua was risky. This was even worse (or better for him) because of a volcano that exploded on an island called Martinique in 1902, killing 30,000 people. This made people scared of volcanoes.
Congress finally voted to keep working on the Panama Canal for many reasons – such as how long it would take to cross the canal, how much land they needed, and yeah, even volcanoes. Since most of Washington D.C. had been rooting for the Nicaragua canal for 10 years, Buanu-Varilla and Cromwell's six months of work in 1902 to get Congress to change their minds was pretty impressive.
A stamp helped make history!
