Records · c. 2500 BC
Central America's oldest pottery came from Panama.
Did you know that pottery from Monagrillo, a shell-midden site near the Parita Bay coast of Panama, has been reliably dated to around 2500 BC and remains the oldest known pottery in all of Central America?
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Heritage · c. AD 500–800
Ancient statues show men riding on shoulders.
Did you know that at Barriles, an ancient village in the Chiriquí highlands, four of fourteen stone statues show a figure in a conical hat riding on the shoulders of a naked man, read by scholars as evidence of social rank?
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Heritage · c. AD 450–900
A shifting river exposed a chiefly gold cemetery.
Did you know that the gold-filled chiefly graves of Sitio Conte in Coclé came to light because the Río Grande shifted its course and began washing gold objects downstream, leading Harvard's Peabody Museum to excavate there from 1930?
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Firsts · 1501
Balboa first saw Panama as a passenger.
Did you know that Vasco Núñez de Balboa first saw the Isthmus of Panama in 1501 as a crew member on Rodrigo de Bastidas's voyage, the first European expedition to sail along the Caribbean coast of what is now Panama?
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Language · 1502
Columbus named Portobelo the 'beautiful port'.
Did you know that Portobelo, later the great treasure-fair port of Spain's empire, owes its name to Christopher Columbus, who sheltered there on his fourth voyage in 1502 and called it Porto Bello, the 'beautiful port'?
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Myth or fact · 1509–1510
Balboa escaped creditors hidden in a barrel.
Did you know that Vasco Núñez de Balboa, the future discoverer of the 'South Sea', escaped his creditors on Hispaniola by stowing away in a barrel, together with his dog Leoncico, aboard Martín Fernández de Enciso's supply expedition?
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Firsts · 25–29 September 1513
Balboa claimed an entire ocean for Spain.
Did you know that after first sighting the Pacific from a Darién summit on 25 September 1513, Balboa waded into the water days later and claimed the whole ocean, which he called the Mar del Sur, for the Spanish crown?
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Records · 15 August 1519
The first European city on the Pacific.
Did you know that Panama City, founded by Pedro Arias Dávila on 15 August 1519 with about a hundred settlers, was the first European city on the Pacific coast of the Americas, although it moved to a new site after 1671?
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Firsts · 1534
A canal was first proposed in 1534.
Did you know that the first proposal for a Panama canal came in 1534, almost four centuries before it opened, when Holy Roman Emperor Charles V ordered a survey for a route across the Americas to shorten voyages between Spain and Peru?
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Heritage · c. 1552–1556
Panama had a self-proclaimed 'Black King'.
Did you know that the enslaved African Bayano led a maroon rebellion in eastern Panama for more than five years from about 1552, commanding up to 1,200 cimarrons and being called 'El Rey Negro Bayano' by the Spanish?
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Firsts · February 1573
Drake saw the Pacific from a tree.
Did you know that in February 1573 Francis Drake became one of the first Englishmen to see the Pacific Ocean by climbing a tall tree on the Isthmus of Panama, using steps cut into its trunk by his cimarron allies?
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Myth or fact · 28 January 1596
Drake's lead coffin still lies off Portobelo.
Did you know that Sir Francis Drake died of dysentery off Portobelo in January 1596 and was buried at sea in full armour in a lead-lined coffin, which divers have searched for without success ever since?
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Myth or fact · 1671
Legend says a priest disguised a golden altar.
Did you know that, according to a famous Panamanian legend, a priest saved the golden altar of the San José church from Henry Morgan's pirates in 1671 by painting it black, so it could later be moved to the rebuilt city?
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Economy · 1698–1700
A Panamanian colony helped end Scottish independence.
Did you know that Scotland's failed Darien scheme colony of Caledonia, founded on Panama's Caribbean coast in 1698, swallowed roughly a fifth of the money circulating in Scotland and helped push the country into the 1707 union with England?
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Language · 1739
London's Portobello Road is named after Panama.
Did you know that Portobello Road, home to London's famous antiques market, takes its name from Portobello Farm, named to celebrate Admiral Edward Vernon's capture of the Spanish treasure port of Porto Bello in Panama in 1739?
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Society · 20 June 1751
Panama's royal court was abolished three times.
Did you know that the Real Audiencia of Panama, created in 1538 as only the third royal high court in the Americas, was abolished and restored twice before its final abolition by decree on 20 June 1751?
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Society · 1812
New Granada was briefly governed from Portobelo.
Did you know that in 1812 the Spanish viceroy Benito Pérez Brito governed the whole Viceroyalty of New Granada from Panama, making Portobelo his capital because rebels held the regular capital, Bogotá?
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Myth or fact · April 1819
A famous fraudster fled Portobelo through a window.
Did you know that Gregor MacGregor, later infamous for inventing the fake country of Poyais, captured Portobelo in April 1819 but escaped the Spanish counter-attack by jumping out of a window and paddling away on a log?
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Myth or fact · 10 November 1821
Panama's independence heroine may never have existed.
Did you know that Rufina Alfaro, celebrated as the heroine of the 10 November 1821 'First Cry of Independence' at La Villa de Los Santos, is so poorly documented that her very existence has been debated in Panama's national parliament?
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Firsts · June–July 1826
Bolívar's first Pan-American summit met in Panama.
Did you know that in 1826 Simón Bolívar chose Panama City to host the Congress of Panama, the first attempt at a league of the newly independent American republics, partly because of the isthmus's central position between the continents?
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Records · 28 January 1855
Its fare was among the world's highest.
Did you know that the Panama Railroad, completed in January 1855 for gold-rush travellers, was the most expensive railway per unit length built at the time and charged a first-class fare of $25 for a 76-kilometre ride?
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Society · 15 April 1856
A slice of watermelon sparked a deadly riot.
Did you know that the deadly Watermelon Riot of 15 April 1856 in Panama City began when an American passenger refused to pay vendor José Manuel Luna for a slice of watermelon, and led to US troops briefly seizing the railway station?
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Culture · 1887
Paul Gauguin dug the French Panama Canal.
Did you know that the painter Paul Gauguin worked as a labourer on the French Panama Canal in 1887, digging from 5.30 in the morning until six at night before illness and poverty drove him on to Martinique?
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Myth or fact · 1902
Nicaraguan stamps helped win the canal for Panama.
Did you know that Philippe Bunau-Varilla swayed US senators away from a Nicaraguan canal before the 1902 Spooner Act by handing them Nicaraguan postage stamps that showed a smoking volcano?
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Society · 18 November 1903
No Panamanian signed Panama's canal treaty.
Did you know that the 1903 Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty, which created the Panama Canal Zone, was signed on Panama's behalf by Frenchman Philippe Bunau-Varilla, who had not lived in Panama for seventeen years, and by no Panamanian at all?
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Economy · 1904
Panama's balboa has never had its own banknotes.
Did you know that Panama's currency, the balboa, introduced in 1904 and pegged one-to-one to the US dollar ever since, exists only as coins, while US dollar banknotes serve as the country's paper money?
Sources
Firsts · 10 October 1913
Wilson blew up a dike by telegraph.
Did you know that on 10 October 1913 President Woodrow Wilson sent a telegraph signal from the White House that detonated the Gamboa Dike, flooding the Culebra Cut and joining the canal's waters for the first time?
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Science · 17 April 1923
A canal-made island became a famous rainforest laboratory.
Did you know that Barro Colorado Island was created when Gatun Lake flooded the Chagres valley, and after becoming a nature reserve in 1923 it grew into one of the most-studied patches of tropical forest in the world?
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Society · February 1925
The Guna once declared their own republic.
Did you know that in February 1925 Guna leaders Nele Kantule and Simral Colman declared an independent Republic of Tule and rose against Panamanian police, a revolt that ended with US mediation and later Guna self-government?
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Records · August 1928
The canal's lowest toll was 36 cents.
Did you know that adventurer Richard Halliburton swam the length of the Panama Canal in August 1928, guarded against alligators by a rifleman, and paid a toll of 36 cents based on his 140-pound weight, the lowest ever?
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Sport · 18 June 1929
Latin America's first world boxing champion was Panamanian.
Did you know that Colón-born boxer Panama Al Brown became the first Latin American world champion in any boxing division when he won the bantamweight title against Gregorio Vidal in New York on 18 June 1929?
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Economy · 1941
Panama's own paper money lasted only days.
Did you know that in 1941 President Arnulfo Arias had Panama issue its own balboa banknotes, but after he was overthrown in October the new notes were withdrawn and mostly destroyed; since then Panama has relied on US dollar notes?
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Sport · 1 October 1945
A baseball legend was born on a train.
Did you know that Hall of Fame hitter Rod Carew was born on 1 October 1945 aboard a segregated train near Gatún in the Canal Zone and was named Rodney Cline Carew after the doctor who delivered him?
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Sport · 1948
Panama's first Olympic medals came from one sprinter.
Did you know that sprinter Lloyd LaBeach, born in Panama City to Jamaican parents, won bronze medals in both the 100 and 200 metres at the 1948 London Olympics, the first Olympic medals for Panama and all of Central America?
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Economy · 1948
Colón hosts the Americas' largest free port.
Did you know that the Colón Free Trade Zone, which began operating in 1948 beside the Atlantic entrance of the canal, is the largest free port in the Americas and the second largest in the world?
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Society · 2 January 1955
A president was assassinated at a racetrack.
Did you know that Panamanian President José Antonio Remón Cantera was machine-gunned to death at the Juan Franco horse-racing track in Panama City on 2 January 1955, a murder that was never conclusively solved?
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Society · 9 January 1964
A flag dispute made Panama break with Washington.
Did you know that the 9 January 1964 riots, sparked when Panamanian students tried to raise their flag at Balboa High School in the Canal Zone, left more than twenty dead and led Panama to break diplomatic relations with the United States?
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Records · 11 October 1968
Arnulfo Arias was overthrown three times.
Did you know that Arnulfo Arias was elected president of Panama three times and removed by force each time, the last on 11 October 1968, when the National Guard ousted him only eleven days after his inauguration?
Sources
Sport · 26 June 1972
Roberto Durán boxed in five different decades.
Did you know that Roberto 'Hands of Stone' Durán, who won his first world title against Ken Buchanan at Madison Square Garden on 26 June 1972, fought professionally in five different decades, from 1968 to 2001?
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Society · 16 March and 18 April 1978
Canal treaties passed with one vote to spare.
Did you know that the US Senate approved both Torrijos–Carter Treaties in 1978 by identical 68–32 votes, just one vote more than the two-thirds majority of 67 needed to hand the canal to Panama?
Sources
Geography · 1979–1980
A pearl-counting island sheltered the exiled Shah.
Did you know that Contadora Island, whose name means 'the one that counts' because Spaniards counted pearls there, briefly sheltered the exiled Shah of Iran in 1979 and later gave its name to the Contadora peace group?
Sources
Firsts · 20 December 1989
The stealth fighter's combat debut was over Panama.
Did you know that the US invasion of Panama, launched in the early hours of 20 December 1989 with about 27,000 troops to topple Manuel Noriega, saw the first combat deployment of the F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter?
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Culture · December 1989 – 3 January 1990
US troops blasted rock music at Noriega.
Did you know that while Manuel Noriega hid in the Vatican's embassy in Panama City, US troops blared rock music day and night, reportedly including Van Halen's 'Panama', until he surrendered on 3 January 1990?
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Society · October 1994
Panama has had no army since 1990.
Did you know that Panama abolished its military in 1990 and wrote the ban on a standing army into its constitution in 1994, making it the second Latin American country after Costa Rica to do without an army?
Sources
Firsts · 31 December 1999
Panama took the canal at noon, 1999.
Did you know that full control of the Panama Canal passed from the United States to Panama at exactly noon on 31 December 1999, ending 85 years of US operation just hours before the new millennium?
Sources
Firsts · 26 June 2016
A ship named Panama opened the new locks.
Did you know that the first ship to pass through the Panama Canal's new Neopanamax locks when they opened on 26 June 2016 was a Chinese-owned container ship named Cosco Shipping Panama?
Sources
Economy · November 2017
Panama joined, then quit, Belt and Road.
Did you know that months after switching diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in June 2017, Panama became the first Latin American country to join China's Belt and Road Initiative, and then left it in February 2025?
Sources
Sport · 24 June 2018
Panama's first World Cup scorer was 37.
Did you know that defender Felipe Baloy scored Panama's first ever World Cup goal against England on 24 June 2018 at the age of 37, becoming the oldest player to score on his World Cup debut, although Panama lost 6–1?
Sources
Records · 2019
Baseball's only unanimous Hall of Famer is Panamanian.
Did you know that Panamanian closer Mariano Rivera, raised in the fishing village of Puerto Caimito, became the only player ever elected unanimously to baseball's Hall of Fame, receiving every writer's vote in 2019?
Sources
Nature · December 2023
Drought cut canal traffic to 22 ships daily.
Did you know that a severe drought in 2023 lowered Gatun Lake so far that by December the Panama Canal could allow only 22 ships a day through, down from a normal 36, since every transit uses fresh lake water?
Sources
Nature · June 2024
Rising seas moved an entire Guna island community.
Did you know that in June 2024 about 300 families left the crowded Guna island of Gardi Sugdub for the new mainland village of Isber Yala, in what has been called Panama's first community displacement caused by climate change?
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Economy · 29 January 2026
Panama's top court voided a 1997 port concession.
Did you know that on 29 January 2026 Panama's Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the 1997 concession under which a CK Hutchison company ran the Balboa and Cristóbal ports at both ends of the canal, and Panama took them over in February?
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Nature ·
Panama's land bridge reshaped life on two continents.
Did you know that the Isthmus of Panama rose from the sea around three million years ago, letting animals such as armadillos walk north and big cats walk south in the Great American Interchange and helping create the Gulf Stream?
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Geography ·
In Panama the sun rises over the Pacific.
Did you know that because the isthmus twists into an S-shape, the Panama Canal runs from north-west to south-east, its Pacific entrance lies east of its Atlantic one, and in Panama City the sun rises over the Pacific?
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Myth or fact ·
The Panama hat actually comes from Ecuador.
Did you know that the Panama hat is really made in Ecuador from toquilla palm straw, and got its name because the hats were shipped through the isthmus and sold to gold-rush travellers, then famously worn by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906?
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Nature ·
Panama's national bird has record-sized talons.
Did you know that Panama's national bird is the harpy eagle, which appears on the national coat of arms and has the largest talons of any living eagle, up to about 12 centimetres in females, used to snatch sloths and monkeys from the canopy?
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Nature ·
Panama's golden frog waves at its rivals.
Did you know that the Panamanian golden frog, a national symbol celebrated every 14 August, communicates by waving its arms like semaphore, and may have been extinct in the wild since about 2007 because of a chytrid fungus?
Sources
Nature ·
Over two million raptors passed in one day.
Did you know that Panama has recorded more than 1,000 bird species, and that on 2 November 2014 counters on Ancon Hill in Panama City logged over 2.1 million migrating raptors, mostly turkey vultures and Swainson's hawks, in a single day?
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Nature ·
Central America's largest island was a prison.
Did you know that Coiba, at 494 square kilometres the largest island in Central America, kept its forests largely intact because it was a feared penal colony from 1919 to 2004, before becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005?
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Geography ·
The Pan-American Highway has a 106 km gap.
Did you know that the Darién Gap, about 106 kilometres of roadless jungle between Yaviza in Panama and Turbo in Colombia, is the only break in the Pan-American Highway, yet more than 520,000 migrants crossed it on foot in 2023?
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Economy ·
Panamanian Geisha coffee sold for $30,204 a kilo.
Did you know that Geisha coffee, an Ethiopian variety grown in Boquete since the 1960s, set a world auction record in 2025 when a washed lot from Hacienda La Esmeralda sold for US$30,204 per kilogram at the Best of Panama auction?
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Myth or fact ·
Nobody knows for sure what 'Panama' means.
Did you know that the popular story that 'Panama' means 'abundance of fish' in an Indigenous language is only one legend, competing with theories linking the name to the panamá tree or a Guna word, bannaba, meaning 'distant'?
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Culture ·
Guna molas began as body painting.
Did you know that the colourful molas sewn by Guna women, made by cutting through two to seven layers of cloth in reverse appliqué, are thought to have begun as geometric designs painted directly on the body?
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Culture ·
Panama's national dish is a hangover cure.
Did you know that sancocho de gallina, Panama's national dish of chicken, ñame yam and culantro, gets its greenish tint from the herb and is widely recommended in Panama as the best cure for a hangover?
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Geography ·
From one summit you can see two oceans.
Did you know that from the summit of Volcán Barú, Panama's highest point at about 3,475 metres, it is possible on rare clear mornings to see both the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea at the same time?
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