Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: Is the Panama Canal American territory?
In 1904, the Isthmian Canal Convention was proclaimed. In it, the Republic of Panama granted to the United States in perpetuity the use, occupation, and control of a zone of land and land under water for the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation, and protection of the canal. From 1903 to 1979, the territory was controlled by the United States, which had purchased the land from the private and public owners, built the canal and financed its construction. The Canal Zone was abolished in 1979, as a term of the Torrijos–Carter Treaties two years earlier; the canal itself was later under joint U.S.–Panamanian control until it was fully turned over to Panama in 1999.[2]
The U.S. Postal Department also used general issue stamps with the territorial name overprinted, such as PUERTO RICO, CUBA, GUAM, PHILIPPINES or CANAL ZONE. Cuba was granted independence, Canal Zone returned to Panama. 
Alternatively, the U.S. issued a 1932 'United States of America' stamp for 18 centavos in the Philippines, 1930 stamps for use in Guam only designated 'Guam Guard Mail, or 1952 'Ryukyus' stamp for 100 yen in Okinawa. The Philippines was granted independence, the Ryukyus were returned to Japan. 
Panama Canal has been featured on several U. S. commemorative stamps, as well as on Panama's own postage. The territory was returned to Panama.
On 9 January 1964, a dispute broke out between Panamanian students and Americans living in the Panama Canal Zone over the right of the flag of Panama to be raised next to the flag of the United States, as the Canal Zone was then a disputed territory between the two nations. During the scuffle a Panamanian flag carried by Panamanian students was torn. This sparked four days of riots that ended with 22 Panamanians and four Americans dead and with Panama breaking diplomatic relations with the United States. This event is considered very important in the decision to negotiate and sign the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, by whose terms the Panama Canal administration was handed over to the Panamanian Government on 31 December 1999. 9 January is known as Martyrs' Day and is commemorated in Panama as a day of mourning.
Effective July 1, 1951, under an act of Congress dated September 26, 1950 (64 Stat. 1038), governance of the Canal Zone was through the Canal Zone Government with the canal operated by the Panama Canal Company until 1979 when the Panama Canal Commission took over its governance.[18][19] The entire structure was under the control of the United States government with the Secretary of the Army appointing the Panama Canal Company board of directors and the Canal Zone Government was entirely financed by the company.[20] The office of Governor of the Panama Canal Zone was not usually a stepping stone to higher political office but a position given to a US Army active duty general officers of the United States Army Corps of Engineers.[21] The Governor was also President of the Panama Canal Company. The Canal Zone had its own police force (the Canal Zone Police), courts, and judges (the United States District Court for the Canal Zone). Despite being an unincorporated territory, the Canal Zone was never granted a congressional delegate.
The University of Florida Panama and the Canal Collection includes materials from the University of Florida Libraries' Government Documents Department, the UF Libraries' Latin American Collection, the UF Libraries' Map & Imagery Library, and other shared collections including the "Panama and the Canal Digital Collection", which is in collaboration with the Panama Canal Museum. The UF Libraries' Government Documents Department is also the Center of Excellence for the US Panama Canal Commission (and its predecessor agencies).
Hallen was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1875. After spending six years in Puerto Rico and two years in Cuba, he was appointed as the official photographer of the Panama Canal by the Isthmian Canal Commission in 1907. Hallen was contracted to capture “… a series of photographs… about once a month… to show construction progress” to satisfy both Washington and the American public. In addition to showing the construction and progress of the Panama Canal, Hallen depicted the day-to-day life of the “Zonians” – Americans living in the Panama Canal Zone - and its development over the course of the years. Throughout his 30-year career, Hallen produced between 12,000 and 16,000 images, each with a “strangely satisfying aesthetic experience” portraying life in the Panama Canal Zone. For his service to the Panama Canal Zone and as an employee of the Isthmian Canal Commission, Hallen was awarded the Roosevelt Medal with two bars.
The Panama Canal Company, the private company which ran Canal operations (whose president was also Governor of the Panama Canal Zone and the head of the U.S. territorial government), began a campaign to have the UPWA ousted. Under pressure from the company, the government of Panama expelled UPWA regional director Max Brodsky in March 1949. Brodsky fled into the Canal Zone (then a U.S. territory, and not part of the nation of Panama), but the Governor of the Canal Zone ordered him deported from there as well. Brodsky returned to the U.S., and the Panama Canal Company successfully had the UPWA ousted as the representative of Local 713 in 1950.
The United States had maintained numerous military bases and a substantial garrison throughout the Canal Zone to protect the American-owned Panama Canal and to maintain American control of this strategically important area. On September 7, 1977, U.S. President Jimmy Carter and the "de facto" leader of Panama, General Omar Torrijos, signed Torrijos–Carter Treaties, which set in motion the process of handing over the Panama Canal to Panamanian control by 2000. Although the canal was destined for Panamanian administration, the military bases remained and one condition of the transfer was that the canal would remain open for American shipping. The U.S. had long-standing relations with General Noriega, who served as a U.S. intelligence asset and paid informant of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1967, including the period when Bush was head of the CIA (1976–77).
During World War II, the canal proved a vital part of the U.S. military strategy, allowing ships to transfer easily between the Atlantic and Pacific. Politically, the Canal remained a territory of the United States until 1977, when the Torrijos–Carter Treaties began the process of transferring territorial control of the Panama Canal Zone to Panama, a process completed on 31 December 1999.
The history of Panama during World War II begins in 1939. Due to the American-controlled Panama Canal cutting across the center of the country, Panama was of major strategic importance to the Allied war effort, as well as the most important strategic location in Latin America during World War II. It provided an invaluable link between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans that was vital to both commerce and the defense of the Western Hemisphere. Therefore, the defense of the Canal Zone was the United States' chief concern in the American Theater. Panama never received Lend-Lease assistance, but in return for the rights to build military infrastructure within Panamanian territory, the United States undertook large-scale public works projects, which did much to modernize the country and boost the economy.
Until 1979, when the Canal Zone as a solely US territory was abolished under the terms of the Panama Canal Treaties, the town of Balboa was the administrative center of the Canal Zone, and remained so until midday on December 31, 1999, by which time, according to the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, the Panama Canal and all its assets and territories were fully returned to the Panamanian government.
Desires for expansion into Spanish territories like Cuba led to the Spanish–American War in 1898, in which the United States gained Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, and occupied Cuba for several years. American Samoa was acquired by the United States in 1900 after the end of the Second Samoan Civil War. The United States purchased the U.S. Virgin Islands from Denmark in 1917. Guam and Puerto Rico remain territories; the Philippines became independent in 1946, after being a major theater of World War II. Following the war, many islands were entrusted to the U.S. by the United Nations, and while the Northern Mariana Islands remain a U.S. territory, the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau emerged from the trust territory as independent nations. The last major international change was the acquisition in 1904, and return to Panama in 1979, of the Panama Canal Zone, a region of American sovereignty to build and run the Panama Canal. The final cession of power over the region was made to Panama in 1999.
Leonardo Barker (born November 7, 1959 in Cristobal, Panama Canal Zone) is an American football player who was the first person born in Panama to play in the NFL. He played for the Cincinnati Bengals from 1984 until 1991. He played varsity football at Rainbow City/Cristobal in the Panama Canal Zone, then an unincorporated territory of the United States. From 2008 to 2010, he was the head coach of the Hornets of Roswell High School. He lives in Roswell, Georgia, with his family, teaches Spanish and is the defensive back coach for the Cambridge Bears.
Elected in 1940, Arnulfo Arias was the President of Panama during two of the first years of the war. He was an overt fascist and regarded as pro-Axis by the Allies for his hostility to the United States and his eagerness to limit American influence over his territory. In 1939, the United States military requested 999-year leases from the Republic of Panama to build over 100 sites outside the Canal Zone – such as airfields, anti-aircraft batteries, and warning stations – which would be used for the defense of the canal. Arias demanded compensation in the form of cash and the transfer to Panama of various properties, but for the United States the price was too high. Negotiations dragged on for the next two years. Eventually, on February 13, 1941, the Panamanian government advised the Americans that, if it were to grant such a request, the United States government would have to declare that an imminent threat to the canal's safety existed.
The Panama Canal Zone was an unorganized US territory located within the Republic of Panama. It was established under the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty in 1903 and disestablished in 1979 under the Torrijos–Carter Treaties. Panama gained full control over the Panama Canal in 1999.
TCC opposed the Panama Canal Treaties which transferred control of the Panama Canal from the U.S. to Panama. To this day, it lobbies to return a limited American military presence to protect the Canal due to its strategic importance in trade and defense. TCC also fears that the Canal is vulnerable to terrorism.
Colombia, France, and later the United States controlled the territory surrounding the canal during construction. The US continued to control the canal and surrounding Panama Canal Zone until the 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties provided for handover to Panama. After a period of joint American–Panamanian control, in 1999, the canal was taken over by the Panamanian government. It is now managed and operated by the government-owned Panama Canal Authority.
The Panama Canal Zone (Spanish: Zona del Canal de Panamá) was an unincorporated territory of the United States from 1903 to 1979, centered on the Panama Canal and surrounded by the Republic of Panama.[1] The zone consisted of the canal and an area generally extending five miles (8.0km) on each side of the centerline, excluding Panama City and Colón, which otherwise would have been partly within the limits of the Zone. Its border spanned three of Panama's provinces. When reservoirs were created to assure a steady supply of water for the locks, those lakes were included within the Zone.
American attention was distracted later in 1974 by the Watergate scandal, impeachment proceedings, and ultimately the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon. Negotiations with Panama were accelerated by President Gerald R. Ford in mid-1975 but became deadlocked on four central issues: the duration of the treaty; the amount of canal revenues to go to Panama; the amount of territory United States military bases would occupy during the life of the treaty; and the United States demand for a renewable forty- or fifty-year lease of bases to defend the canal. Panama was particularly concerned with the open-ended presence of United States military bases and held that the emerging United States position retained the bitterly opposed "perpetuity" provision of the 1903 treaty and thus violated the spirit of the 1974 Kissinger-Tack principles. The sensitivity of the issue during negotiations was illustrated in September 1975 when Kissinger's public declaration that "the United States must maintain the right, unilaterally, to defend the Panama Canal for an indefinite future" provoked a furor in Panama. A group of some 600 angry students stoned the United States embassy.
The Manila Elks Lodge #761 is a unique branch club of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks—BPOE, an American fraternal order. It is one of only two Elks Club established outside of current United States territory, the other being in Panama near the former American territory of the Panama Canal Zone,
The 1959 anti-American riots in Panama happened during the celebration of Panamanian independence on November 3, 1959. Demonstrations started that day as Panamanians were influenced by former foreign minister Aquilino Boyd, who threatened a "peaceful invasion" of the American-controlled Panama Canal Zone, to raise the flag of the republic there as tangible evidence of Panama's sovereignty over the territory.
From July 8, 1947, until October 1, 1994, the United States administered the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, but the Trust ceased to exist when the last member state of Palau gained its independence to become the Republic of Palau. The Panama canal, and the Canal Zone surrounding it, was territory administered by the United States until 1999, when control was relinquished to Panama.
Annual traffic has risen from about 1,000 ships in 1914, when the canal opened, to 14,702 vessels in 2008, for a total of 333.7 million Panama Canal/Universal Measurement System (PC/UMS) tons. By 2012, more than 815,000 vessels had passed through the canal.[2] It takes 11.38 hours to pass through the Panama Canal[3]. The American Society of Civil Engineers has ranked the Panama Canal one of the seven wonders of the modern world.[4]
The details of the arrangements for U.S. operation and defense of the Canal under the Panama Canal Treaty are spelled out in separate implementing agreements. The Canal Zone and its government ceased to exist when the treaties entered into force and Panama assumed complete jurisdiction over Canal Zone territories and functions, a process which was finalized on December 31, 1999.
With the abolition of the Canal Zone government in 1979, Balboa High School, like the rest of the Canal Zone Schools system, fell under the Department of Defense Dependents Schools. Over the next two decades, the population of American Canal Zone dependents decreased as the population of the Canal Zone itself changed. Aside from thousands of American dependents of the Panama Canal Company (later Panama Canal Commission), Canal Zone Government and U.S. armed forces, Balboa High School was also the Alma Mater of many of Panama's business and political elite.