Ferdinand de Lesseps tried building a Panama Canal in 1880, but could not finish it. The project was started again in 1904 by the United States, under the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, who spent ten years and 375 million dollars building it. The Panama Canal was finally finished in 1914, at the cost of approximately 25,000 lives. Most deaths were from disease, and before United States construction of the canal began. The US government owned and operated the canal until 1999 when the Panamanian government started controlling it.