But how could he finance the dam without selling his country to one of the superpowers? Then he saw the answer: the Suez Canal, of course. The canal was pulling in about $90 million a year, and Egypt was getting only $6.3 million of it, roughly. Here was the money Egypt needed for its development, and it was mostly draining away to Europe! In 1956, Nasser suddenly poured troops into the Canal Zone and took over the canal.
