A question for you
Over the centuries, it was placed at the Canary & Madeira Islands, the Azores, the Cape Verde Islands, Rome, Copenhagen, Jerusalem, St Petersburg, Pisa, Paris, and Philadelphia (among other places) before it finally settled down in London.
What is it?
It’s zero-degree longitude – and I’ve just read an interesting book about the solution of the problem of identifying precisely one’s longitude [my review here].
October 11th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
I’ve always liked watching the time ball at Greenwich fall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_ball). Hardly an event but it does remind one about the challenge of sailing out of the Thames and beyond in days gone yore.