On October 9, 1913, President Woodrow Wilson opened the Panama Canal by dynamiting the final dikes holding the water at bay. He did it from the comfort of the White House, keying a telegraph transmitter which set off the explosion from over 4,000 miles away. In the 103 years since Wilson pushed that button, the Panama Canal has become an international shipping bottleneck, as container ships grew too large for its aging locks. Much of that will change in June, when a $5.25 billion effort to expand the canal reaches its long-delayed conclusion, allowing ships more than two and a half times the size of the current limit to pass through the famous waterway. In the United States, the increased capacity could have profound effects on the transportation industry, as the cost of shipping from Asia to ports in the eastern United States would drop significantly.