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The Panama Canal
Panama is the narrowest place between the Atlantic and the Pacific, around eighty kilometres from coast to coast. Panama was created as a state in 1903 when the United States backed a secession from Colombia after Colombia refused the canal terms — the canal is therefore the reason for the country, not the other way round. The construction is also a turning point in medical history: William Gorgas's mosquito control was the first large-scale application of vector theory. The Canal Zone remained American until 1999, when it was transferred to Panama under the Torrijos–Carter treaties.
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