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Historical event · 1675 CE

Founding of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich

History of Astronomy

What happened

King Charles II founded the Royal Observatory at Greenwich in 1675 to improve navigation by mapping the stars and the Moon. It gave its name to the Greenwich Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time and shaped positional astronomy for centuries.

Knowledge connections

Sources & references

The primary and reference sources this topic draws on.

  • BritannicaEncyclopaedia Britannica

    General reference for the history of astronomy, biographies, and cultural context.