The Greenwich Meridian's Forgotten Rival
If you've ever been to the Louvre, you may have stumbled across a small disc bearing the word "Arago" and the letters "N" and "S" - or in other words, the exact location of the old Paris Meridian.
But what's the story there?
How close did Paris ever get to becoming THE Meridian?
And why did we end up with Greenwich instead?
I decided to investigate...
Tim Byrne is "The Tim Traveler". His (more or less) weekly videos are gems of historical and geographical knick-knacks. Utterly without importance, and utterly charming.
I was aware that the International Date Line is a fairly recent thing, but Tim's storytelling makes it magic.
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This video includes a cameo from Jay Foreman ( www.youtube.com/@JayForeman ), who also produces fun geography videos. Very UK, but still...
No comment on a YouTube seed possible, but just to support your posting of an interesting non-political seed.
Oh, and if I recall correctly, France wanted French to be the international language used by pilots and air traffic controllers for international air flights, but lost out to English, which IS considered the "International Language", being used by more nations of the world than any other language.
Sorry for the off topic but you just reminded me of I joke I heard while stationed in Europe with USAFE in the 80s.
Seems this lufhunsa flight was going into rhein-main and the pilot contacted the tower in German.
The tower responds to the pilot to please use English.
The irritated pilot responds," I am a German pilot flying a German registered commercial aircraft into a German airport, why should I use English?
Before the tower could respond , over the radio came a crisp , clearly British uppercrust voice stating, because you lost the bloody war old chap.
Radio silence followed.
Glad to be of service.