The name “Panama” is believed to have come from an indigenous language and to mean something like “abundance.”
The two fundamental facts about the nation of Panama are its abundance of wildlife, and that it is located where the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans come closest together.
- Listen now:
Playlist:
Fanfare
Opening War Theme
“Himno Istmeño” [The national anthem of Panama.]
Composed in 1903 by Santos Jorge. Public domain.
Performed by The United States Navy Band. Public domain recording. Source.
Closing War Theme
Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.
What a terrific episode about Panama, its history, and its bountiful flora and fauna.
One note, which you may well be aware by now. The Japanese had Aircraft submarines from before WW2. In 1942, mid-war, the Japanese chose to build the I-400 series, which would hold three float-plane bombers, designed to attack the Panama Canal. 18 were planned, but only three were completed. All 3 were captured and inspected after the war, though the US did not know about them during the war. (Wikipedia, “I-400 series submarine”)
I thought you might want to know.
(PS and foreshadowing, the Japanese were quite far along in the development of an atomic device, if not a bomb. Further than Germany.)
G’day from Australia Mark, great episode. Just wanted to clarify something I’ve noticed you’ve mentioned a couple of times and that is regarding the belief from western colonisers that African workers were resilient to tropical diseases and this being a purely racist theory with no basis in fact. Whilst there is no evidence that African workers were resilient to yellow fever, there is pretty solid science that Africans from certain regions were, and still are, more resilient to malaria.
I guess the slave traders noticed certain Africans getting fevers and not dying at the rates of other nation’s slaves but were unable to distinguish between which fever they were suffering from.
Whilst slavery (and racism) is deplorable in all forms, past and present, to my mind it is actually rather impressive that they were able to figure this out with little to no medical knowledge so long ago.
Here’s a wiki article on it (Human genetic resistance to malaria) and there are many scholarly articles you can read on the topic too. It is also to be noted that science shows these are inherited genes and not just youth exposure to certain African peoples.
Once again, great work!
While it is true that some humans have genetic resistance to malaria, that resistance does not fit neatly along racial lines as we define them. Many people not of African ancestry have this genetic resistance; some people of African ancestry do not. There is no neat 1.0 correlation, though admittedly the correlation is greater than zero.