English clockmaker John Harrison revolutionized long distance seafaring in the 18th century, solving the problem of calculating longitude at sea and devising tools that helped sailors navigate with ...

Explains the concepts of latitude and longitude, which are used to locate places on Earth. It describes how latitude is measured in degrees north or south of the equator and how longitude is measured ...

Following the Scilly naval disaster of 1707, which lost four British Navy ships and almost 2000 sailors at sea, Parliament decided sailors needed a better navigational tool. The British government ...

Once called the Prime Meridian of the World, the invisible line running north to south that divides the world into Eastern and Western hemispheres passed through the Airy Transit Circle — a ...

Receive emails about upcoming NOVA programs and related content, as well as featured reporting about current events through a science lens. The Prime Meridian was set in 1884 using the large Transit ...