Plans are afoot once again to build a canal through Nicaragua, providing a shortcut for container ships carrying goods to and from Asia and the east coast of North America. Like others before it, the plan is controversial — for economic, political, and environmental reasons...

The Spanish conquistadores were the first to investigate a canal route through Nicaragua in the 1500s. Interest revived with the arrival of the California Gold Rush in the 1840s. Railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt operated a shuttle operation through Nicaragua — taking would-be prospectors from Caribbean ports up the San Juan River and across Lake Nicaragua before shuttling them overland to the Pacific, where they could resume their journey by ship to San Francisco. Vanderbilt proposed building a canal, but his plans were thwarted when another American, William Walker, invaded Nicaragua with a private army.

In the early 1900s, the U.S. Senate faced a choice between backing a canal project in Nicaragua or one in Panama. For a while, Nicaragua looked like a strong favorite: It offered the lowest passage between the two seas anywhere between Alaska and Tierra del Fuego and it was thought to be relatively free of malaria and other tropical diseases, which were prevalent in the jungles of Panama.

But a last-minute gambit by backers of the Panama project may have swayed the outcome in their favor: A Nicaraguan postage stamp depicting an erupting volcano appeared in the office of every Senator, supposed evidence of that country’s seismic activity and unsuitability for a canal. (Whether or not the stamp actually influenced the outcome isn’t clear, but it was one of the most clever ploys in a sustained lobbying campaign)...

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2014/02/nicaragua-canal-maps/?cid=co19201774#slide-id-556701