stackyFACTSWhy is Greenwich, London the absolute zero of global longitude? Because in 1884, a bunch of diplomats got together and essentially voted on it. The French were furious, but the British mapmakers won, forcing the world to set their clocks to London time.
Keep exploring facts in this topic.
Transport →STACKY FOR IPHONEKeep discovering with Stacky. Interesting facts in an app that is always within reach.
The invisible line dividing the eastern and western hemispheres could have been placed absolutely anywhere on the globe. It only runs through a specific spot…
Discover more
The British government was so tired of getting hopelessly lost that they passed a law offering a massive bounty—twenty thousand pounds—to anyone who could…
Discover more
A hemisphere is literally just half a sphere. It’s a conceptual tool invented so mapmakers didn't have to draw both sides of the planet at once. We’ve turned…
Discover more
Backpacks are great, but indigenous peoples realized long ago that human shoulders are weak. A tumpline is a strap that loops over the top of your head,…
Discover more
When the ocean threatened to swallow this massive beacon, humans decided to just push it away. They slid a thousand-ton brick tower inland using steel beams…
Discover more
Before widespread home refrigeration, society relied on men walking aggressively door to door at dawn. Clinking heavy glass bottles down the sidewalk, they…
Discover more