American reacts to 'Why Britain is the Center of the World'

[@spencerburke]

Video a little misleading. The UK was using Greenwich as its prime meridian for map-making for decades prior to the US conference. All that was decided was that other countries would adopt the same standard - and many of them were already following the UK standard, as the UK produced most of the maps. I dont think there was much 'letting Greenwich be the centre' involved.

[@1234andrewjacksmith]

less they were the first and more they were the biggest by far since you know about a quarter of the world would have already been using those maps and that ignores anyone buying maps from Britain or in the case of USA having once been sort of part of Britain

[@CoL_Drake]

thats exactly what the video says. it says every country had their capital or something close the main thing so obviously england had greenwitch as the main thing long ebfore ... it LITERALLY says it in this video you not understanding what the video says doesnt makes it misleading mate

[@spencerburke]

@@CoL_Drake Not really. Listen again.

[@Pandemonis]

Yes, and they based it on universal system, made by France, it was a real time of competition that was building stuffs up, rather than warmongering against each other ! (Well, we had warmongered for a millenium and were both tired of it lol)

[@KeesBoons]

@@CoL_Drake Listen again.

[@valeriedavidson2785]

He failed to mention that Britain invented trains and that we had the time sorted by 1840 not later 1800's.

[@stirlingmoss4621]

we developed practical travelling steam engines that could pull trains...🥸

[@Pandemonis]

Yeah, sure, France had nothing to do with steam engines... *laughs in Pascal*

[@grapes008]

@@Pandemonis laughs in heros engineb (this existed, and worked more than 1600 years before pascal). The set of rules that define how a steam engine works would still exist, Pascal just figured out the maths that describes them. It's the same as jacquard invented the computer. There is a whole load of things that go into inventions and progress. The point that was made is the industrial revolution that occured in britian is what pushed forward the unification of how time is kept. Then there was the use of very accurate clocks used for sea navigation. Why not let the people, who at the time, made some of the most accurate time pieces known to man?

[@Pandemonis]

@@grapes008 Why not acknowledge that it was the France - UK rivalry which led to all of this, up to the point of l'entente cordiale once Germany became united ?

[@grapes008]

@@Pandemonis hey you started it.

[@RogersRamblings]

At Greenwich the Prime Meriden isn't invisible. There's a brass strip laid in the ground. It's possible to straddle it and have one foot in the east and one in the west.

[@nswinoz3302]

Unfortunately its exactly the same in Paris, France 🇫🇷 and it’s called the Rose line. It why an agreement had to be made. NSW in Oz

[@NigelWaite-cx6mm]

The line passes under the telescope that was used to make the measurements for astronomical maps used for navigation. There have been a series of these telescopes, and the line was shifted with each new instrument. Nowadays the zero line as measured by GPS is actually a couple of hundred metres east of the metal strip in the ground.

[@missharry5727]

In Kenya I stood with one foot in the Northern hemisphere and one in the Southern, straddling the Equator. Similar sort of thing.

[@Patte-chan]

18:12 "I guess these GMT lines match up with the time zones... just the normal time zones here in America." Those _are_ the time zones.😆

[@martijnkeisers5900]

😂

[@JJ-of1ir]

That's a really funny joke. Thank you for giving me a good laugh today!

[@ericcantona4324]

Bore off will you. No one cares

[@freudenberg101]

This is wrong. You don't go 180° north and south, it's 90°.

[@martingrant4096]

It's the Centre of the World because an Englishman drew up all the Worlds Time Zones, John Harrison went out with the Royal Navy and Navigated all the Worlds Time zones, he picked Greenwich S.London because that's where his ship sailed from, you can find out about Harrisons clocks at the Greenwich Museum, and the Film called Harrisons clocks is Fantastic, check it out. 👍🏻

[@pashvonderc381]

2nd all the above, was also in Greenwich in the Summer..

[@tihomirrasperic]

about Harrisons clocks, the best thing to do is watch the episode Only Fools and Horses s08 e03 Time on Our Hands 😁🤣

[@JJ-of1ir]

Spot on!

[@lesalmin]

Johnny kind of missed the point there: it was never really important to put the zero-line in Greenwich, instead it was important to put the Internation Date Line "in the middle of nowhere" where it would cause the minimum hassle and the best place for that was agreed to be a line in the middle of Pacific Ocean where there were no big land masses and not meny people living. And as a consequence of that the zero-meridian was determined to be somewhere in UK. Then they just fine-tuned it to Greenwich, which they thought was a cool place to have it.

[@theinvisibleneonrainbowzeb2567]

That's interesting, thanks for sharing! That does make a lot of sense about the international date line aspect and I will try and look into that further (if i remember!) I have found quite often with Johnny Harris videos that the point is somehow missed, muddled or muddied to some degree. Of course I don't know to what extent this occurs, nor whether or not it is an intentional editorial decision or something more benign, that is unclear.

[@JJ-of1ir]

Yes you are right. Though they did choose Greenwich for a scientific reason. To add to that the highly detailed maps the British had already produced for our own travels around the the World - always with the co-ordinates marked from Greenwich, London, as '0' - would have been truly costly and an extraordinarily time consuming task for other Nations to rechart for themselves. We had solved the great problem of Longitude with Harrison's invention after all. No, it was just common sense, cost saving and convenient to use Britain's available maps.

[@stonegrundy123]

We were taught in school in england that the fact thats there was very little in the way of land mass on the opposite side of the globe to greenwich was a factor in the final choice

[@futurefox128]

Reminds me of the story where an American girl called some other girl a "terrorist" because she didn't warn them of 911, when she first "learned" about the concept of time-zones.

[@brigidsingleton1596]

That sounds like the sort of comment Favor A.🇺🇸 would make (but it may not have been her - despite her other comment re Montenegro being a badly-named place - due to its final five letters..."black mountain" _obviously_ being an example of the 'R' word, naturally🤔?!)😊 ❤️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🖖

[@janolaful]

That wasn't a child that was an adult who didn't understand different timelines they lived in the uk which is 5hrs in front of new york her reply was why didn't you warn us its a time difference not time travel. I thought it was disrespectful because lost meny that day

[@brigidsingleton1596]

@@janolaful The American girl of whom I was speaking wasn't / isn't a child either. When I watched Favor's 'Reaction channel', she was around 23 years old, (& apparently "full of herself") acting always as if she knew everything whilst only knowing 'Texan ways', very little of the world etc, including when she visited London - where she had relatives she stayed with - she said she _will_ continue calling 'Trafalgar Square', "_TRAF_-al-gar" - instead of 'Tra-_fal_-gar' "because that's how it looks to me"

[@markharris1125]

The time ball drops at noon - it was a signal for shipping on the river. And I do believe Greenwich was Zero Degrees long before that conference - it just made it official. Apart from the damned French, of course. The whole of Greenwich Park is my favourite place in London. If you ever visit, ignore the crowded city centre, take the light railway to Greenwich, walk up through the Park to the viewing area next to the Observatory. Walk across to an even better view from One Tree Hill. It's a beautiful, friendly breath of fresh air.

[@steveosborne2297]

Something else I thought I would mention as you didn’t understand the Greenwich Time ball . To enable ships to set their chronometers exactly for their navigation every day , at 12:58 pm the ball would ascend to the top of the pole and at exactly 1 pm it would be dropped .Thus enabling all ships to be able to navigate safely

[@JJ-of1ir]

Yes, exactly! Even Big Ben chimed the time set by the Greenwich Time Ball - I don't suppose it was alone either!

[@Shytot-1]

In case you are interested Ryan, Antarctica is 1.5 times bigger than the USA.

[@davsav]

I live near Greenwich and have sometimes stood in both hemispheres at the same time.

[@steveosborne2297]

A long time before this conference there were two main empires mapping the world . The British who put zero latitude through Greenwich and the French who put zero latitude through Paris . However by 1884 the British Empire spanned most of the globe and the French Empire had rapidly receded . Also as a matter of interest if you go to Greenwich you do not stand on an imaginary line there is actually a very heavy strip of metal set into the ground at exactly 0° . So , if you want , you could stand astride this line to have 1 foot in the east and 1 foot in the west

[@MrBulky992]

It's no longer in the right place: the meridian has been recalculated to be about 102 metres to the east of the brass markings on the ground.

[@Maria-js9ou]

Greenwich has zero LONGITUDE, not latitude

[@steveosborne2297]

@@Maria-js9ou I do apologise you are of course quite correct . I don’t know why I said that , my brain must’ve had a serious glitch , especially as I’m a sailor and navigating all the time .

[@perer005]

"I hope the world would just collaborate to make the whole world better" // Man from the #1 country refusing to let go of their old measurements and follow international standards :P

[@ArmandoBellagio]

Glad that GMT riddle got solved for you by accident 😃 I just would have thought that Britain was the most powerful Empire during the time it was decided. Never knew that there was an actual conference where they voted on this.

[@brigidsingleton1596]

😊 Have you watched Al Murray... "The Germans don't sit down to lunch til _we_ tell 'em it's lunchtime!! We put the line there - but it still stands!!" (We could've said no but why would we...the power so to do was / is in _our_ hands, British superiority?!! Lol!!)😊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🤔🇬🇧❤️🖖

[@phoenix-xu9xj]

Sailing without a GPS is frightening. My husband is 76 and still happily driving a manual without GPS. 😂

[@perer005]

The main advantage of placing the zero-line around England is that the "cut" on the opposite side lands in the Pacific and doesn't impact many people. If you placed the zero-line in the US that cut would happen somewhere in Asia where loads of people live. Also, the north and south degrees are wrong, because they only go to 90, not 180

It would have been better to put it in Oslo. Now it cuts the Chukotka Peninsula out of Russia.

[@stirlingmoss4621]

the British Empire didnt fall, the Nations were given their independence and most chose to enter the Commonwealth of Nations under the Crown.

[@aphextwin5712]

One could consider the UK loosing wars of independence as the fall of the British empire, but then most places left relatively peacefully.

[@brigidsingleton1596]

​@@aphextwin5712 'Losing' ... Not "loosing" (there's a difference, and not _just_ in spelling and pronunciation)😊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧❤️🖖

[@aphextwin5712]

⁠@@brigidsingleton1596 Unfortunately the distinction between [s] and [z] (in the IPA meaning) is something I never quite managed to get fully right in English. Or rather I tend use the way the character s is pronounced in my mother tongue, like an [s] at the end of the word and like [z] in the middle of a word. Then again, I’m not pronouncing things 100% correctly in my mother tongue either, as the region I am coming from tends to not use the [z] at all. Thus losing and loosing basically sounds the same to me. Combine that with the common affliction of typing “phonetically”, and I run the risk of a mistake like this if I don’t do proofreading. Where typing “phonetically” means if the same sound can be written in multiple ways, eg, “there” and “they’re”, whatever process in my brain that converts thoughts into finger action while typing, somewhat randomly picks one of them.

[@brigidsingleton1596]

@@aphextwin5712 I apologise then,for my unrequested edit. 🤔🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🥺🇬🇧❤️🖖

[@Jorgerally35]

What it really happened is that we still can see the British Empire

[@susyward581]

I don’t think it was a case of deciding uk would be the best base line, rather, the uk has it sorted. All those in favour? Right now let’s go for a drink

[@JJ-of1ir]

Exactly

[@andrewobrien6671]

This is very misleading. The USA and Chester Arthur had nothing to do with GMT. Britain had been using it for ages and because of the empire it was widely used around the world.

[@bblake5116]

But Americans like to think they invented everything

[@alexialu4224]

How do people not know this? I mean, this is basic elementary school level of geography, when you study how coordinates work, lol.

[@Jorgerally35]

they prefer to bully another guys at school than paying attention. that's how the world works mate

[@catherinewilkins2760]

Why does "O" go through Greenwich, because we put it there! Nautical navigation, people like Cook, Finders and Kelvin helped improved it. Not forgetting Harrison of chronology fame. Their origins are British. (We devised the Train, also)

[@stevepage5813]

@catherinewilkins2760 lol, have you been watching Al Murray clips on here per chance?

[@BlooFinguhz]

I sailed on the sea without GPS, I can think of a whole lot of things that are more adventurous ;-) It really isn't that bad.

[@euromaestro]

Ryan never ceases to amaze me

[@wessexdruid7598]

He's a lot better than his twin brother, who professes to be 'the average american' and never listens to what his viewers say.

[@kevingrant7098]

Sounds like a good idea people coming together and trading with each other. I wish the UK was part of something like that.

[@tl1897]

🤣👍

[@DenUitvreter]

Just trading and not using trade to rule, that would be a nice.

[@moonramshaw1982]

😂😂😂

[@tobyk.4911]

you're absolutely right: the UK *WAS* part

[@CazPea]

We trade with thousands of companies around the world, just left the old boys club

[@newmageo9179]

Did you also realize Ryan that all aircraft worldwide from the smallest private plane to the largest commercial airliner operate on Greenwich Mean Time so that there can be no confusion as to where and when any aircraft is in the sky. If I take off from my local small airport on the outskirts of Melbourne I have to report my departure time and Eta using GMT which depending on Daylight Savings Ajustments is usually 10 hours earlier than actual Melbourne time.

[@Maria-js9ou]

UTC

[@lynjones2461]

You do realise that mariners mapped out sea voyages long before gps John Harrison invented the marine chronometer he was born in England in 1693 and died in 1776 he was a carpenter and clockmaker this enabled seafarers to accurately work out the longitude no disrespect but did you actually think people just set sail blindly hoping they wouldnt fall of the edge of the world sweetie i dont get that some Americans have no concept of things outside of their own borders xx

[@JohanteGrotenhuis-nt3fi]

It’s because they are…..stupet

[@xlerb_again_to_music7908]

Its amusing to check out The Commonwealth of Nations wiki - the commonwealth is (mostly) a "friendly club" of mostly ex-British Empire nations. What always hits me is the population. That underscores the size of the British Empire in modern terms!

[@gdok6088]

The Royal Observatory, Greenwich was built in 1675 and is a modest size by modern standards. However, the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich is a very large and imposing building. It is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, a network of museums in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. The Old Royal Naval College is the architectural centrepiece of Maritime Greenwich, a World Heritage Site in Greenwich, London, described by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) as being of "outstanding universal value" and reckoned to be the "finest and most dramatically sited architectural and landscape ensemble in the British Isles".

[@Madders23]

That was so interesting. He explained it in a way I’ve understood for the first time. Thanks for showing this.

[@ianbriers5019]

There is a physical mark in the ground there's a bar where you can stand by one foot east one foot in the west I remember that when I went there myself. The opposite side of the world is an international date line i virtually no one lives on the line because it's a convenient point to have the date line

[@Jinty92]

Britain also has daylight savings. We say that We spring forward and fall back. That's how we're taught growing up which way the clock is moving when We adjust it for daylight savings. We use the American fall footfall back, so it perhaps started stateside. We follow GMT but during daylight savings, we move our time forward to GMT+1, which we call BST (British Summer Time). During WWII, Britain adjusted their daylight savings to GMT+2, to make it harder for the enemy bombers. It was dangerous for civilians trying to get around as it was so dark for more of the day. Britain considered adopting this again years later, to give longer daylight savings, but it was decided that it would be too dangerous for children walking to school in Scotland, where I live, as it would be darker for much longer than in the South of England. My mum was 5 when war broke out and she said the darkness meant you couldn't see your hands in front of your face.

[@JJ-of1ir]

hello @Jinty92. The word 'Fall' - meaning Autumn - is used in the counties in the South-West of England. You know, the area where the 'Mayflower' sailed from on its journey to America. So not an American expression - but it may also be used there.

[@LostsTVandRadio]

It's fun to stand on the meridian marker in Greenwich and to be half in the eastern hemisphere and half in the western hemisphere.

[@batman51]

If you don't want to go to Greenwich, you can see the Prime Meridian marked on the roof of the subway between platforms at Hither Green station.

[@mazcamel4077]

.Subway??

[@batman51]

@@mazcamel4077What we use to go underneath the road way or in this case, the railway.

[@DanVibesTV]

@@batman51"Underground" is the word, not subway :)

[@batman51]

@@DanVibesTV No, subway is the correct word. It is what Britons use to walk under a road or railway at, in this case, a railway station.

[@CazPea]

@@DanVibesTVyou’re getting confused, I believe he meant when you walk under the road, that’s a subway. Not subway, as in the U.S

[@LostsTVandRadio]

In the 1700s the King's meridian passed through Kew Observatory in west London. Thus for a hundred years most of London was in the eastern hemisphere until the Greenwich meridian (in east London) became the standard. At that point most of London relocated to the western world!

[@geekexmachina]

Actually the other good reason for putting 0 through this point is because you need a start place probably with a decent population centre but also a international date line in a place that avoids populated areas ie the ocean.

[@tobyk.4911]

the international date line goes zig-zag between population centres/ islands, and can change sometimes according to political preferences of some states. it's not a fixed longitude.

[@geekexmachina]

@@tobyk.4911this I know the point im making is if it goes through a major landmass it becomes a lot more awkward so its about limiting the number of places inconvenienced

[@vijay-c]

​@@tobyk.4911 Yes, but it generally goes through a mostly uninhabited Pacific ocean rather than a major landmass. Imagine if it ran through a continent!

[@aphextwin5712]

@@vijay-cYeah, you wouldn’t want the dateline to divide any country and using sea borders is easier than land borders. The only other good location would be the Atlantic (with only Greenland being affected). But given that the prime meridian going through London was already pretty established it was sort of good luck that 180° west (or east) of London happened to be the Pacific.

[@tobyk.4911]

@@vijay-c yes, it surely makes sense that the international date line would be either through the Pacific Ocean or the Atlantic Ocean. And as the most powerful nations with influence in different continents at that time we in Europe - and their most important trade partners probably on the other side of the Atlantic - it surely made sense to have the same date and day of the week on both sides of the Atlantic. If time zones and date line would have to be decided now, after Europe lost a lot of influence, East Asian countries became much more powerful on a global scale, and the trans-Pacific trade became much more important - it would now probably become more interesting to consider defining the date line in the Atlantic instead of the Pacific.

[@tobyk.4911]

4:20 did he say 180° North and South? oops. that does not exist - the maximum value is 90° (North pole and South Pole)

[@matijamaksan4344]

I needed your comment to realize that. Thank you.

[@stevepage5813]

@tobyk.4911 Near enough for a USA person.

[@Jorgerally35]

Well, you could go 180º North and you would end up in the equator again right? (joke joke dont kill me pls)

[@tobyk.4911]

@@Jorgerally35 I'm glad this is a joke, so that I didn't need to come up with a serious answer to this

[@Pete_1972]

Yip, we are the center of the world because of GMT. I think we sometimes think we are the center of the universe…like the US 😆

[@KTanit]

Well, the center of the Galaxy is a black hole, you're well on your way there. 😂

[@aphextwin5712]

Usage likely varies around the world, but the ‘official’ name for GMT is nowadays usually UTC, universal time zone.

[@ESCLuciaSlovakia]

17:10 This is what we've been doing in school in a geography class: what time and date is in city X, if in city Y it's 5:00 am January 1st etc. Often crossing the date line, to make it more difficult.

[@marieparker3822]

This is primary school physical geography (at least it was in my day, the Cretaceous - the children are probably now totally occupied by learning the 852 'genders' and 20,000 pronouns).

[@robertgrant4987]

The line af Greenwich is not invisible!! Been there

[@Rachelhappyface]

There’s actually a visible line in the floor you can stand on :) I loved going to the observatory when I lived in London. It’s actually a lot bigger than the little building you saw the photograph of, there’s loads of cool stuff.

[@quatra1000]

Strange. I've known this my entire life. This is stuff you learn in school, right?

[@Jessy-cs1jz]

As mentioned below Britain invented the train , and was building railways from Brazil to Japan , Britain also had the fasted ships making use of the screw propeller and inventing the steam turbine , Britain also had the biggest Banking and insurance companies that needed a standardised time to work by ......... it was a no brainer London was picked .....

[@JJ-of1ir]

There really wasn't a choice was there!

[@Joanne-t6j]

Hi Ryan, writing from your tomorrow (Australia). You don’t look well; I hope you get better over the weekend and are able to post again on our Tuesday (your Monday). Confused? 😄

[@jcook3986]

For an accurate description of why Britain. The first place to go is The Royal Greenwich Observatory, where the scientific history behind this subject is shown, including many important artifacts. Although the railways developed first in Britain where standardised time tables were required, the matter of 0 degrees at Greenwich was much more a maritime isssue and loss of life at sea, an extremely important matter in the time of large sailing ships.. For that you need the story of John Harrison, watch and clock maker. There are a couple of good sources, Adan Hart-Davis's documentary and the film 'Longtitude' starring Michael Gambon. The basic reason is Britain/Greenwich led the world in knowing where ships were at sea using time pieces that would stay accurate on a rolling ship, allowing them to travel more widely and more safely, and therefore the likely place to be chosen as the standard for zero degrees.

[@theeccentricmilliner5350]

Check out the amateur clock maker from the UK who allowed sailors to find longitude. John Harrison. If you have a gps and stand on the prime meridian it'll be a bit off. The gps system is from the US and the location chosen for reference in Washinggon has a small rounding error

[@DavidSmith-cx8dg]

There is usually a Zulu clock on ships for GMT references opposed to local time . Most maps and charts also take Greenwich as the datum . It's always a little off putting to see one based on the International dateline with us banished to the top corner and a clearer view of the Pacific

[@billydonaldson6483]

The Exchange in Bristol has a clock with two different minute hands, one shows London time and the other shows Bristol time 11 minutes different. The London time one showed what time the trains would arrive according to the London timetable, it must have been a nightmare to get your head around all the different time zones within a small country.

[@paulharvey9149]

There is a painted line on top of the visible line in Greenwich Park, Ryan - to allow tourists to be photographed standing with one foot in each side...

[@brigidsingleton1596]

The Line at Greenwich Observatory is made of brass and is firmly affixed to the ground.😊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿❤️🇬🇧🖖

[@paulharvey9149]

@@brigidsingleton1596 ah well, where there's muck...!!!

[@brigidsingleton1596]

@@paulharvey9149 There's brass...! 🤔 So, you're implying Greenwich is mucky (or, perhaps, muck-filled) ?! 🤔🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿😳🇬🇧❤️🖖

[@conallmclaughlin4545]

Are American schools really that bad? I kinda assumed everyone knew the most of this already

[@TrollofCulture]

In this topic, the terms East and West go back to ancient times. Everything west of Rome was the land of the evening (Occident) and everything east of Rome was the land of the morning (Orient).

[@SlosII]

180 degrees north and south? No, those go up to 90 degrees only.

[@TimoLaine-pv5ph]

First affordable GPS devices came to market in 80's. My friend had handheld one in his sailboat in late 80's or early 90's, you would enter the coordinates you want to get to and it it'd show you the direction and the distance. It took several minutes to initiate and find the satellites and the signal was intentionally impaired back then so that the accuracy of commercial devices was tens of meters at the best. Military devices had correction coefficients so that they had the same accuracy we are used to today.

[@t.a.k.palfrey3882]

Going without GPS is "horrifying"? I learned astral and solar navigation when in the Sea Cadets over 60 yrs ago, and my grandsons still learn it in sea scouts today. You'd hate driving with me, Ryan. I use maps and don't turn on the GPS in my Land Cruiser, partly because much of the driving I do is on rough roads which don't appear on GPS. It's not Kansas any more where I live!! 🤭

[@Leslie-Risse]

Map Men did a great video on the topic.

[@vtbn53]

Anyone else triggered by the misspelling of centre?

[@rikmoran3963]

I'm from the UK, but I knew who Chester A. Arthur was, because I am a fan of the Die Hard movies! It's weird where you learn some things! 😁

[@BlueRoseHelen252]

The meridian line is a physical line on the floor in Greenwich you can physically stand one foot either side, which we did as kids on a school trip😊

[@micade2518]

Had you never wondered about the meaning of AM (Ante Meridiem), PM (Post Meridiem) and GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)???

[@daveofyorkshire301]

_Antarctica's area of 5.4 million square miles makes it 1.5 times the size of the conterminous U. S_

[@wallywombat164]

GMT. Jesus. For the self proclaimed smartest Country with the smartest people on the planet. The US is a Worry. I learned this in Australia in primary school. 😮😮😮

[@kaelon9170]

8:00 not that horrifying at all, before we had GPS ships used to navigate using naval maps, sextants and astral navigation (figuring out where you are by literally looking at the stars) at night to recalibrate. Sure, it was a lot of math, but ships would have a dedicated navigator to do all this and keep track of where they were and whether they were still going the right direction. Even planes used to navigate this way in the early days before GPS and inertial reference systems were invented.

[@marymills285]

I live in Greenwich - couple of hundred yards from the Meridian. An American once said to me 'isn't it inconvenient having to change by 24 hours every time you go down to the shops??'

[@careytitan9097]

Yes, a little Island with a population of 5 million people, conquered a third of the world, which founded America. Europeans from all over Europe populated the Americas, who we know call 'Americans' today. Those European Americans, including some of the British Americans, started a war on the British to take what they had accomplished in America. The British invented trains and many of the worlds inventions that have helped to modernise the Western world. Imagine if history had been different, Americans today would have free health care, national Benefits and no federal bank, better education, less working hours, more maternal leave, more working holidays and freedom of movement into Europe. Americans you were robbed! Be careful what you wish for!

[@robertgrant4987]

There's a lot more to it than meets the eye, observatory museum meridian line souvenir shops beautiful grounds gardens etc etc and etc

[@borntoclimb7116]

Love those Videos. Greetings from Germany.

[@Jeni10]

I learned this in primary school, the International Date Line is important to understand how time zones work. 360 degrees Lateral means from side to side, meaning latitude - the horizontal lines on a map. Longitude goes up and down, meaning the vertical lines on a map. GPS wasn’t possible until we had satellites in orbit. Greenwich Mean Time = GMT. The US education system is sorely lacking.

[@Maria-js9ou]

Sorry, "...from side to side, meaning longitude. Latitude goes up and down"

[@valbyfield1496]

In addition to the Greenwich meridian already being used by Britain, and many other countries, it also had the advantage of putting 180 longitude and the dateline in the Pacific where the problem that represents affects very few people.

[@feldegast]

Chester A. Arthur is the president of importance in the 3rd Diehard film.... 21 of 42

[@booboss]

Nobody mention that but the GMT line might be in Greenwich not because Greenwich is where it is but because if GMT line is in Greenwich then International Date Line is exactly between Asia and America (Russia and Alaska) and there's no (almost) any land on that line. Which is very convinient because no one wants to have International Date Line in the middle of continent or country. EDIT: On the other hand though - if you look at the map probably the better place for International Date Line would be between Europe and Greenland. But then of course GMT line (not called that anymore) would be at far East end of Russia. Look at Google Maps to see what I mean.

[@WilliamSmith-mx6ze]

But then, in effect, North America and Europe would be a day apart. It would interrupt trade if it was Monday in Europe but still Sunday in North America, or Friday in North America but Saturday in Europe.

[@booboss]

@@WilliamSmith-mx6ze That's also true. Frankly I didn't thought about it. Most likely however it's just because it's in UK.

[@berndbrotify]

3:28 That's only called "the middle east" from an English perspective (which the US probably just adopted with the language). What the Brits call the "middle east" is for example called the near east ("naher Osten") in German, or West-Asia (Azja Zachodnia) in Polish. For Germans the term "middle east" ("mittlerer Osten") usually refers to Pakistan, India, Bangladesh etc. Some people falsely use "mittlerer Osten" to refer to the middle east, but that's mostly due to a mistranslation of the English term.

[@DominicRScales]

4:20 - the latitudes (the lines parallel to the equator) go from 0 to +90 at the North Pole and 0 to -90 at the South Pole (not +180 and -180)

[@martinbynion1589]

Antarctica (plus Canada and Greenland) look massive only because most maps (especially those using Mercator's Projection) distort them to look much bigger, whilst shrinking the size of Africa massively, Ryan. Only on a globe can you see the true size of various continents and islands. Sailing the seaas was pretty ok after the late 18th century when clocks were able to keep perfect time aborad a ship (Thanks, John Harrison 🙂). This meant that longitude could be measured easily (if the sun was visible) and you didn't have to worry about running into things in a westerly or easterly direction. Latitude was measurable hundreds of years before that. A timeball was used to signal the exact time (usually at Noon) to allow ships ready to sail from the docks to adjust/check their own chronometers prior to sailing off into The Wild Blue Yonder.

[@knudplesner]

It is not +/- 12 hours, but +/- up to 14 hours, because some countries choose to be on the other side of the date line, e.g. because they will be the first to celebrate the New Year. Almost all countries have summer time, but not gmt. And not all countries switch between summer time and winter time on the same dates. Not all time zones are offset by whole hours, some are by half hours, such as India. Not all countries have, cf. their law, synchronized with gmt, Denmark is officially one of the last countries to have an offset of up to about one second. kzbin.info/www/bejne/r4PdXneia5V_nMU

[@andrayellowpenguin]

Lol! It always amazes me when Americans start listing their presidents. That's sooo weird in Europe! It's the reminder of what a young country the US is... I mean just imagine listing all the kings, emperors and presidents in the history of almost any European country only from the middle ages onwards and their accomplishments! 😂

[@stephenbaker-lemay479]

Actually although the line is invisible visiting it means you can technically stand with one foot in the East and one foot in the West, you could go to Rhodes and stand with one foot in the Aegean Sea and one in the Mediterranean, there’s also a place in Denmark where you can stand in two Seas at the same time though of course it’s only because of how we named things.

[@akyhne]

Ships used GPS, before the GPS satellites. They used a sextant, a watch and compas for the same purpose.

[@colinw16]

An interesting fact for our US friends, the most Eastern and Western point in their country are both in Alaska. The extreme part of the state is actually across the dateline in tomorrow and that is the furthest East.

[@linabmoniz]

In London there are several references where the Greenwich meridian passes in greenwich. Há uma estação de comboio que tem a linha

[@annimackenzie]

I live on the 'Famous Prime Merdian', it runs through the centre of my house xxx

[@jillybrooke29]

I used to live near Greenwich, near where I was born in now South East London... really interesting place but until 1965 it was still in officially in KENT, not London so they did not pick it in the old days cos it was in London.

[@raidri_conchobair]

The Antartica is bigger than the US or Europe is.

[@juyjuka]

Hi Ryan Wuzer, on that day you are nailing it. You are ahead of the video and on point with your understanding/guesses. Do you have any idea why it is so signifficantly diffrent then most of your other videos? Did you learn more/before about the topic or do you hava affinety for it? Greetings Juy Juka

[@paulbeneder9337]

Did he say 180 degrees north and south???? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Omg, and he went ONLINE with that??? 😂😂😂 I

[@Maria-js9ou]

Ryan didn't even blink!

[@Maria-js9ou]

4:16 " ... get higher and higher until you get 180º North " WHAT ???? OMG !!!

[@nedeast6845]

Humble American...blimey....

[@couli1807]

Imagine Christopher Colombus and his 3 caravels (actually a carrack and 2 caravels) departing from Palos de la Frontera, one evening of August 1492, heading due West (actually South West toward the Canary Islands as a first stage), in quest of a new route toward India! They were not completely sure the Earth was round but they set sail nonetheless. Talk about pionneers! Tougher times, tougher men.

[@Sassin777]

7:33 Polynesian wayfinders ;)

[@OriginalOwner777]

Stopped at 13.11 to write this. Britain did have an invention at the time which supported the mirridian. It was accurate nautical clocks. Before clocks where only accurate to as much as an hour a day the british invention made them accurate to seconds. Today this may not seem like a big deal with gps but back then knowing accurately the time could be the difference of 100miles on the map hence that was the invention which truelly redefined global navigation. However the accurate clocks where first created to unify british time for trains so it is an ongoing technological growth in Britain which was way ahead of the rest of the world.

[@87CVH]

Funny because for a short period of time ;) railway time was actually a thing, and clocks started having extra hands

[@jessgibson4790]

Like you said it was down to who ruled the most, The British Empire - the largest empire the world has ever seen!

[@balthazarasquith]

Centre* 😊

[@__smily__1129]

He’s from America I think, so it’s different to where you might be

[@balthazarasquith]

​@@__smily__1129 yeah I know it's my little bit of trolling. I'm a bored Brit lol

[@crocsmart5115]

Aahhhh you beat me to it 😢 arse!!!😂

[@balthazarasquith]

​@@crocsmart5115😂😂😂😂

[@tharu44]

jokes on u its centor 🤣

[@georgeamery]

Zulu time is GMT. Its used by the Royal Navy and the US navy Check.

[@stennostenno1346]

What happened to the Pispers video?

[@Dafoodmaster]

Daylight savings is not dumb, it's really important but people think it's bad because *they're* dumb. People instinctively think "winter time" sounds worse than "summer time" because they equate summer with happiness and sun, and winter with cold - but it just means having more daylight during the dark winter months

[@marccaillotdechadbannes6249]

That's Johnny, he loves maps 😂

[@ngaourapahoe]

Is that Greenwich ?