Royal Observatory, Greenwich, founded

Historical Context Note

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.04: English Writing and Culture of the Seventeenth Century, 1625-1688.
Vol. editors: Jennifer Brady (Rhodes College), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Neil Forsyth (Université de Lausanne), Claire Preston (Queen Mary, University of London), J A Roe (University of York), Virginia Mason Vaughan (Clark University)

Domains

Astronomy
Organisations and institutions (scientific)

Dates

Date of occurrence 1665

Places

United Kingdom (Location)

Resources

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The Royal Observatory in Greenwich was established in 1675 by King Charles II to develop means of providing mariners with reliable ways of discovering their longitude and latitude. Its work therefore focused on the provision of accurate star charts and lunar tables, improving chronometry. The most prominent of the astronomers who worked there were John Flamsteed (1646-1742), the first Astronomer Royal from 1676, and Nevil Maskelyne (1732-1811), Astronomer Royal from 1756-1811, whose

Nautical Alamanac

, published annually from 1766, used Greenwich as the degree zero for its lunar tables and star charts. Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) and Edmund Halley (1656-1742), whose work established most of the fundamental understanding of astronomy, cosmology and planetary motion, were associated with…

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181 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Royal Observatory, Greenwich, founded". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 January 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=5771, accessed 20 April 2024.]

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