DID you know that the Statue of Liberty was intended for the Suez Canal and NOT America?

In 1867, when de Lesseps's idea, the Suez Canal, was nearing completion, Bartholdi drew up plans for his statue. It was to be in the form of a robed female Egyptian peasant, a falaha, with light beaming out from both a headband and a torch thrust dramatically upward into the skies. Its theme? "Progress" or "Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia." (Years later, Bartholdi denied any association between "Progress" and the final design for the Statue of Liberty.) Bartholdi presented his plans for "Progress" to the Egyptian ruler, Isma'il Pasha, in 1867 and, with revisions, again in 1869. But the project was never commissioned.