Greenwich, London was established as the Universal Time meridian of longitude, from which all World time zones are based on, on this day, i.e., October 13, in 1884. GMT is the name for the mean solar time of the longitude (0°) of the Royal Greenwich Observatory in England. At different times in the past, it has been calculated in different ways and as a result, it cannot be used to specify a precise time unless a context is given.
As Britain developed into an
advanced maritime nation, British mariners kept at least one chronometer on GMT
in a bid to calculate their longitude from Greenwich meridian, which was
considered to have longitude zero degrees, by a convention adopted in the
International Meridian Conference in 1884. This practice then led to GMT being
used worldwide as a standard time independent of location. In the following
years, GMT was adopted across the island of Great Britain by the Railway
Clearing House in 1847 and by almost all railway companies by the following
year.
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