Royal Observatory, Greenwich, founded

Historical Context Note

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)
Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Tweet Report an Error

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 …

181 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Royal Observatory, Greenwich, founded". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 January 2009 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=5771, accessed 23 November 2024.]

5771 Royal Observatory, Greenwich, founded 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.