The Centuries-Long Journey to the Discovery of Longitude

13 July 2010

STEVE EMBER: This is Steve Ember.

BOB DOUGHTY: And this is Bob Doughty with the VOA Special English program EXPLORATIONS. Today, we tell about how people learned an important piece of information necessary for safely sailing on the oceans. It is called longitude.

(MUSIC)

STEVE EMBER: On a foggy October night in seventeen-oh-seven, four English navy ships hit rocks in the Atlantic Ocean and sank. Two thousand men drowned. The ships had been sailing in the thick fog for twelve days. There was no sure way to know where they were. The commander of the ships had been worried that they could hit rocks if they were not careful. He asked his navigators for their opinion on their location in the ocean.

The navigators did not really know. They told the commander they thought they were west of a small island near the coast of northwestern France.

They were wrong. Instead, they sailed onto rocks near a small group of islands southwest of England's Atlantic coast. The navigators' lack of knowledge led to the loss of four ships and two thousand lives.

BOB DOUGHTY: When people began sailing out of sight of land, sailors did not know how to tell where they were on the open sea. Land travelers can look at a mountain, or a river, or an object that shows them where they are in relation to where they came from. On the ocean, however, there is no sign to tell a sailor where he is.