Kiel Canal named after Wilhelm I of Germany
Construction and expansion
In June 1887, construction started at Holtenau, near Kiel. The canal took over 9,000 workers eight years to build. On 20 June 1895 Kaiser Wilhelm II officially opened the canal for transiting from Brunsbüttel to Holtenau. The next day a ceremony took place in Holtenau, where Wilhelm II named the waterway the Kaiser Wilhelm Kanal (after his grandfather, Kaiser Wilhelm I), and laid the final stone. British director Birt Acres filmed the opening of the canal; the Science Museum in London preserves surviving footage of this early film. The first vessel to pass through the canal was the aviso SMS Jagd, sent through in late April (before the canal officially opened) to determine if it was ready for use.
To cope with the increasing traffic and the demands of the Imperial German Navy, between 1907 and 1914 the canal was widened by Germany to allow  Dreadnought-sized battleships to pass through, allowing them to travel between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea without having to go around Denmark.  Two larger canal locks in Brunsbüttel and Holtenau were installed to complete the enlargement.
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