In 1962 John F. Kennedy announces to the nation for the first time, the events of the ‘Cuban Missile Crisis’. Increased relations between Communist Russia and Cuba caused a growing rift between Cuba and the United States. On the 22nd of October 1962 the announcement of the ‘Cuban Missile Crises’ caused panic across the world almost starting Global Nuclear War. Britain, Turkey and Italy had United States Thermonuclear Jupiter and Thor missiles in their countries for a few years when the Russian’s, using their influence, placed some of their own in Cuba. Previously America had not had the threat of nuclear missiles on their doorstep and Cuba being just 90 miles from Florida the US would have little time to react. For the theoretical ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’ deterrent to work being able to respond quickly was vital and without it, Russia had the advantage. Kennedy had known about the construction of the missiles in Cuba for several days but didn’t want to let the Russians know until he had put a plan in action. He had the island of Cuba surrounded by the US navy in order to prevent more arms being brought into the country and he also demanded the missiles be dismantled. For thirteen days the world watched with fear and dread until the two superpowers leaders managed to end the crisis peacefully. Russian President Nikita Krushchev agreed to the dismantle ling of the missiles if the US agreed not to invade Cuba (and more secretly the United States promised to remove its missiles from Turkey, but this was not revealed for 25 years). The crisis was over but the panic felt around the world was remembered for a long time afterwards.
In 1707 the worst disaster for the Royal Navy took place which led to the creation of accurate naval navigation.
On the 29th of September 1707 a Royal Naval fleet of 21 ships left Gibraltar and headed home to England but severely bad weather made navigation almost impossible and the fleet got turned around. They headed for what they believed to be an island of Brittany but they were actually headed for an island in Sicily. On the 22nd of October Four of the ships hit rocks and 2,000 men lost their lives in Britain’s worst maritime disaster. The British Parliament offered a prize of £20,000 (around £2,000,000 today) for anyone that could solve the problem of determining longitude around the world.
As the world was round its 360 degrees could be divided into 24 portions of 15 degrees which give us lines of longitude. So if you knew the time in a point of reference and the local solar time (using the method below) you could calculate your position (in this arrangement 1 degree equals a 4 minute difference). King Charles II ordered the construction of the Royal observatory in 1675 to “in order to the finding out of the longtitude of places for perfecting navigation and astronomy” (Charles II). The problem was that all accurate clocks the day used pendulums to keep time and the motion on ships disrupted this. By 1735 inventor John Harrison had created a time piece that used springs instead of a pendulum and this solved the problem.
Prior to this day all major towns and cities in the world set their clocks based on the position of the sun in their own area. 12:00 pm or noon was based on when the sun was directly overhead. This could be determined by placing a rod in the ground and when the shadow pointed directly north, south or disappeared (depending on the time of year) local time was set to noon.
