How European sailors learned celestial navigation – Margaret Schotte | Aeon Essays

Marine chronometer - Wikipedia

A marine chronometer is a timepiece that is precise and accurate enough to be used as a portable time standard; it can therefore be used to determine longitude by means of accurately measuring the time of a known fixed location, for example Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and the time at the current location. When first developed in the 18th century, it was a major technical achievement, as accurate knowledge of the time over a long sea voyage is...

Cloudesley Shovell - Wikipedia

Admiral of the Fleet Sir Cloudesley Shovell (c. November 1650 – 22 October or 23 October 1707) was an English naval officer. As a junior officer he saw action at the Battle of Solebay and then at the Battle of Texel during the Third Anglo-Dutch War. As a captain he fought at the Battle of Bantry Bay during the Williamite War in Ireland.

Scilly naval disaster of 1707 - Wikipedia

The Scilly naval disaster of 1707 was the loss of four warships of a Royal Navy fleet off the Isles of Scilly in severe weather on 22 October 1707. Between 1,400 and 2,000 sailors lost their lives aboard the wrecked vessels, making the incident one of the worst maritime disasters in British naval history.[2] The disaster has been attributed to a combination of factors such as the navigators' inability to accurately calculate their positions,...