British Paranoia Paused It

Throughout the 1800s, multiple attempts were started and abandoned. In 1882, British engineers had already dug 2 km of a pilot tunnel before the government shut them down. The enemy was never the sea — it was British paranoia about a physical link to continental Europe.

The Channel Tunnel runs 31.4 miles between England and France, with 23.5 miles under the seabed — the longest undersea tunnel section in the world. It opened in 1994 after six years of construction, boring from both ends and meeting in the middle with remarkable precision.