DIPLOMAT

Ferdinand de Lesseps

1805 - 1894

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Icon of person Ferdinand de Lesseps

Ferdinand Marie, Comte de Lesseps (French: [də lesɛps]; 19 November 1805 – 7 December 1894) was a French Orientalist diplomat and owner of Main Idea of the Suez Canal, which in 1869 joined the Mediterranean and Red Seas, substantially reducing sailing distances and times between Europe and East Asia. He attempted to repeat this success with an effort to build a Panama Canal at sea level during the 1880s, but the project was devastated by epidemics of malaria and yellow fever in the area, as well as beset by financial problems, and the planned Lesseps Panama Canal was never completed. Eventually, the project was bought out by the United States, which solved the medical problems and changed the design to a non-sea level canal with locks. It was completed in 1914. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Ferdinand de Lesseps is the 13th most popular diplomat (down from 10th in 2019), the 439th most popular biography from France (down from 399th in 2019) and the 2nd most popular French Diplomat.

Ferdinand de Lesseps is most famous for his construction of the Suez Canal in Egypt, which opened in 1869.

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Among DIPLOMATS

Among diplomats, Ferdinand de Lesseps ranks 13 out of 90. Before him are Ban Ki-moon, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Alexandra Kollontai, John R. Bolton, Raoul Wallenberg, and Antony Blinken. After him are Adlai Stevenson II, Mohamed ElBaradei, Madeleine Albright, Lucien Bonaparte, Alva Myrdal, and Folke Bernadotte.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1805, Ferdinand de Lesseps ranks 8. Before him are Joseph Smith, Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, Princess Sophie of Bavaria, Alexis de Tocqueville, Giuseppe Mazzini, and William Rowan Hamilton. After him are Maria Anna of Bavaria, Fanny Mendelssohn, Louis Auguste Blanqui, Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Marie d'Agoult, and Khachatur Abovian. Among people deceased in 1894, Ferdinand de Lesseps ranks 7. Before him are Heinrich Hertz, Alexander III of Russia, Robert Louis Stevenson, Hermann von Helmholtz, Francis II of the Two Sicilies, and Lajos Kossuth. After him are Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Adolphe Sax, Anton Rubinstein, Gustave Caillebotte, Hans von Bülow, and Marie François Sadi Carnot.

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In France

Among people born in France, Ferdinand de Lesseps ranks 439 out of 6,770. Before him are Arthur Honegger (1892), Isabella of France (1295), Giambologna (1529), Pierre Beaumarchais (1732), Aristide Briand (1862), and Léo Delibes (1836). After him are Napoléon, Prince Imperial (1856), Théophile Gautier (1811), Gérard Philipe (1922), Charles Le Brun (1619), Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728), and Olympe de Gouges (1748).

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Among DIPLOMATS In France

Among diplomats born in France, Ferdinand de Lesseps ranks 2. Before him are Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754). After him are Lucien Bonaparte (1775), Édith Cresson (1934), and Jules Cambon (1845).

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