Chart the course of maritime navigation from the days of rough reckoning to the ground-breaking technological advances of the late 1700s.
A History of Navigation
Background
The greatest pioneer of this navigation revolution was Captain James Cook who navigated the vastness of the Pacific thanks to the technical genius of John Harrison. In 1759, Harrison devised the first ever clock to keep the time exactly - in any variation of climate.
Thanks to the Harrison's clock keeping exact Greenwich Mean Time, sailors could then determine how many hours they were before or after that time and thus able to determine their longitude (degrees East to West position) on the globe.
Credits
Images: The Navigation Animation features images reproduced courtesy of the National Maritime Museum.
Historical consultant: Graham Dolan of the National Maritime Museum.
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