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83 years
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John Harrison was a self-educated English carpenter and clockmaker. He invented the marine chronometer, a long-sought after device for solving the problem of establishing the East-West position or longitude of a ship at sea, thus revolutionising and extending the possibility of safe long-distance sea travel in the Age of Sail. The problem was considered so intractable, and following the Scilly naval disaster of 1707 so important, that the British Parliament offered the Longitude prize of £20,000 (£2.75 million). Harrison came 39th in the BBC's 2002 public poll of the 100 Greatest Britons....
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Eratosthenes, Measuring the Earth
Eratosthenes of Cyrene was a Greek mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theorist. He was a man of learning, becoming the chief librarian at the Library of Alexandria. He invented the discipline of geography, including the terminolog... |
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Hipparchus, Astronomer
Hipparchus was the most important Greek astronomers of his time. He very accurately cataloged over 1,000 stars and invented the mathematical science of trigonometry. Ptolemy was a great admirer of Hipparchus's research and recorded some of it in his... |
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Christiaan Huygens, Dutch Scientist
Christiaan Huygens was a prominent Dutch mathematician and scientist. He is known particularly as an astronomer, physicist, probabilist and horologist.
Huygens was a leading scientist of his time. His work included early telescopic studies of the... |
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Charles II of England
Charles II was the King of England, King of Scots, and King of Ireland from 1649 until his death. His father Charles I had been executed in 1649, following the English Civil War; the monarchy was then abolished and the Kingdom of England and the King... |
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Thomas Tompion, English Clockmaker
Thomas Tompion was an English clock maker, watchmaker and mechanician who is still regarded to this day as the Father of English Clockmaking. Tompion's work includes some of the most historic and important clocks and watches in the world and can comm... |
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Captain James Cook, British Navigator, Explorer
Captain James Cook was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer, ultimately rising to the rank of Captain in the Royal Navy. Cook made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean during which he achieved the... |
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George III, King of Great Britain
Britain's King George III was the 18th century monarch who lost the fight to keep control over the American colonies. The third monarch of the Hanover house and the first to be born in England, he held the throne from 1760 until 1820, a reign second... |
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Abraham-Louis Breguet, Watchmaker
Abraham-Louis Breguet or Bréguet, born in Neuchâtel in Switzerland, was a horologist who made many innovations in the course of a career in watchmaking in France. He is the founder of Swiss luxury watch brand Bréguet. Breguet became a member of the B... |
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Delambre, The Metric System
In 1795 Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre was admitted to the Bureau des Longitudes, becoming President in 1800. In 1801 he was appointed secretary to the Académie des Sciences making him the most powerful figure in science in France.
In 1790 The Aca... |
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2022 © Timeline Index |
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