Why GMT passes through London

 I notice something every time I look at it.that kind of irks me.that something is this ,this zero.this zero which is not just one number,but it's actually a corresponding line that look like this

The Earth is divided into lines.sometimes they're curved like they are on my map,and whether or not they're curved or straight .but just know that the earth is divided up into lines, latitude and longitude lines. Ones that go up and down and ones that go from side to side.all of these lines in the grid have a number associated with them.so for the up and down lines, there's zero point .and then anywhere to the right of that or east of that starts to go up from zero to 180 with a little E next to it for east of the zero line,and then everything to the left or west of it has the same thing zero to 180 with a W for westOkay that centre point is the zero point from which all east and west things are measured.the same thing for these side to side lines. If you go up from here, you're gonna stay to get higher and higher untill you are yet to 180 degree north.

Or if you go south ,you will go 180 degrees south which is the south pole.finding out where the zero point should be for these horizontal lines is actually quite easy.the earth has these two natural poles,which make for a natural top to bottom of the earth,and halfway in between two poles,you have this perfect centre point,the equator,which is a very natural place to put this zero point and to measure everything from.the up and down lines are totally arbitrary,where you decide them,like, who's the say that,like,it couldn't be right here in Russia and this could be zero,and everything could go west and east here, or Japan for that matter?Well ,a long time ago that's how it used to be.these maps with these grids were really really important for navigating the world.If you live in Japan you would just make Japan the zero and the rest of the coordinates would be measured against that one zero point which was JapanAnd same if you live in friends or Washington d'sou of India this was fine because back then countries kind of just fought war and competent with each otherFirst country and empires instead of just competing and fighting with each other started to actually say like we should alive with each other and trade and be friends because that's the better for everyone. Pair this with the fact that map making and see navigation has becoming like a big industry.In short map making was trending okay and there was one more thing that was happening around in this time that was super important which is the train trains everywhere and trains were also trading people were now a will to travel like a cross the country. Where you could buy a ticket and get on a train and end up somewhere 100 of miles away. And you know what trains run on, beside coal is time, timetable schedule how do you know when your train is going to arrive and when it's gone leave and when it's gone to get there.

In time, some universal set time the problem is back in the 1800s, there was no universal set time.check out this piece of paper.

Every town had their own time depending on when it was known for them total nightmare for trains the life blood of train is time.

He was the US president that no one remembers.

This US president in the late 1800ssaw a problem with all of this.

He realized that having a bunch of different map

with a bunch of different zero points

based on whoever was making it was a problem.

And he realized that not having a universal time zones or some sort of universal way

of making the same time for everyone was also a problem.So he invited 41 countries to come here to Washington D.C.,where I live, and to sit around and thinkand talk about where this zero point should be.

Where should the center of the world be

so that we can measure time as well as navigation.

All maps could be normalized to this one spot.

So after a moment of a bunch of white dudesSitting around in a room in Washington,D.C.,they came to a vote.and almost unanimously said the zero line should goes right through London England.it actually goes through a little outskirts town called Greenwich.This would be the place where the prime Meridian,or the zero point for the entire worldEvery country at the conference agreedIt was 1884 and Britain was just really good at oceans.the British Empire was by far the biggest most powerful Navy that had most experience with maps and ocean-fearing,the king of ocean have this centre point.