Answer:
They were searching for a waterway through or around North America, or a northwest passage to Asia.
Explanation:
Giovanni da Verrazzano was born around 1485 near Val di Greve, 30 miles south of Florence, Italy. Around 1506 or 1507, he began pursuing a maritime career, and in the 1520s, he was sent by King Francis I of France to explore the East Coast of North America for a route to the Pacific. He made landfall near what would be Cape Fear, North Carolina, in early March and headed north to explore. Verrazzano eventually discovered New York Harbor, which now has a bridge spanning it named for the explorer. After returning to Europe, Verrazzano made two more voyages to the Americas. On the second, in 1528, he was killed and eaten by the natives of one of the Lower Antilles, probably on Guadeloupe.
Verrazzano and Francis I met between 1522 and 1523, and Verrazzano convinced the king that he would be the right man to undertake exploratory voyages to the West on behalf of France; Francis I signed on. Verrazzano prepared four ships, loaded with ammunition, cannons, lifeboats, and scientific equipment, with provisions to last eight months. The flagship was named Delfina, in honor of the King’s firstborn daughter, and it set sail with the Normanda, Santa Maria and Vittoria. The Santa Maria and Vittoria were lost in a storm at sea, while the Delfina and the Normanda found their way into battle with Spanish ships. In the end, only the Delfina was seaworthy, and it headed to the New World during the night of January 17, 1524. Like many explorers of the day, Verrazzano was ultimately seeking a passage to the Pacific Ocean and Asia, and he thought that by sailing along the northern coastline of the New World he would find a passageway to the West Coast of North America.
During the 1880s, following completion of the 105-mile Suez Canal, French entrepreneur Ferdinand DeLesseps poured billions of francs and 25,000 lives into an unsuccessful attempt to build a sea-level canal through Panama. The French effort was thwarted by disease, unreliable machinery, and almost a billion cubic yards of rock that stood in the way.
In 1879, Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps, the builder of the Suez Canal proposed a sea level canal through Panama. With the success he had with the construction of the Suez Canal in Egypt just ten years earlier, de Lesseps was confident he would complete the water circle around the world. Time and mileage would be dramatically reduced when traveling from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean or vice versa. For example, it would save a total of 18,000 miles on a trip from New York to San Francisco.
Although de Lesseps was not an engineer, he was appointed chairman for the construction of the Panama Canal. Upon taking charge, he organized an International Congress to discuss several schemes for constructing a ship canal. De Lesseps opted for a sea-level canal based on the construction of the Suez Canal. He believed that if a sea-level canal worked when constructing the Suez Canal, it must work for the Panama Canal.
A. suspend freedom of the press for newspapers.
