One foggy night in October 1707, Admiral Cloudesley Shovell grounded four British warships on the rocks of the Isles of Scilly leading to the loss of some 2,000 lives.
The distinguished admiral, like countless seafaring predecessors, had fallen victim to the curse of faulty navigation. Whereas sailors were able to plot their latitude with reasonable accuracy using the sun and stars as guides, they were unable to determine their longitude nearly as well. This was for the simple reason that the lines of latitude run parallel while those of longitude converge at the North and South Poles.
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