whoops! I made a little error. I made it look like the North and South poles go up to 180 degrees which they don't! they go to 90 degrees north (North Pole) and 90 degree south (South Pole) sorry about that!

Colonizer: knock knock me: who's there Colonizer: Europe Me: Europe who? Colonizer: Europart of our colony

You forgot the most important point. The International Date Line was falling in the Pacific Ocean if we chose Greenwich as 0 degree. And so, it won’t cause trouble to any major settlement. No country would experience different dates on their land. Date would change seemlessly without creating a ruckus in any country.

You have to admit, it's pretty convenient that the international date line goes through basically no inhabited land

The rest of the world: “Stop acting like you’re the centre of the universe Britain!” Britain: “But I am the centre of the world!”

We’re the centre of the world because we said so

I think you missed an important part of time history. The reason GB was so good at sea was due to John Harrison, an English watch maker that made a watch so accurate that the problem with longitude was solved. This made the maps produced in the U.K. more accurate than everyone else’s. This together with the growth of the British Empire helped cement this notion which was why the US had already been using Greenwich as the PM (and most others).

The map being like that with the UK in the middle means that the edges of the map cut through the least amount of land possible which is handy.

World: “why is Britain the centre of the world?” Britain: “because we said it is”

Let's be honest here, this is also the most practical way to center a map, nobody wants to cut asia or america in half...

The inventor of the clock that allowed for accurate navigation East and West by the vertical lines of latitude was English, and so as a consequence the point of origin started in England.

"It goes through a little outskirts town called Greenwich." 😂 Love your videos Johnny! But if you lived in Greenwich as a young person these days, it would be considered relatively central, and certainly part of the city proper.

Let’s cut it short: it’s the centre because we put the line there

I live in Greenwich it is not an outskirts town it’s a normal busy borough in South East London it’s like saying the Bronx is an outskirts town in New York

World: “why is Britain the centre of the world?” Britain: "Because we invented the modern world" Britain: "Your welcome"

I think this is one of the best video I have seen GMT topic and must a watch for all kids/adults studying geography subject. How easily you have explained these complicated topics. It at times becomes difficult to understand when you just read and read instead watch and learn. Thanks a lot to you ! Wish you the best for all future assignments.

"Britain was just really good at ocean" - Johnny Harris 2019

Other countries: „you are not the center of the world!“ Britain: „actually...“

The reasons I keep coming back to watch your videos is 1) cool and random topics 2) I like listening to you because you are natural teacher and story teller 3) it is easy to follow your logic as you lead viewers down a trail of crumbs 4) I can use your videos to teach a broad range of topics to my English language learning students in Belarus and Russia - as long as I slow the playback speed down to 0.75 cause, um, you speak pretty quickly for them to follow. Anyway, thank you, Johnny for doing a brilliant job on gathering an array of facts, graphics to explain them, keeping people focused and informed at the end.

Absolutely love the way you explain things.. you make complex things easy to understand 👏 Have been binge watching your videos, and I cannot stop!

A US president that nobody remembers. That sounds like a good guy!

I love how I'm entertained and brain trained at the same time

I thoroughly enjoyed the video, I'm not a map or time nerd, but I couldn't stop watching.❤ Well done, and thank you.

Thanks for making me a little smarter every video I watch. By far one of the most entertaining people I watch across all media platforms

Johnny: I'm gonna go to the Royal Observatory next year. 2020: *laughs in Coronavirus*

Imagine calling Greenwich a little outskirts town ITS IN LONDON MATE

Awesome content! I am very interested in Geography too and would be great to see more videos from you :)

Your videos are really well made, thanks from someone watching in royal borough of Greenwich near the observatory.

I'd say Greenwich is part of London, not an outskirt, but hey ho

You’re the first American I’ve ever heard pronounce Greenwich right

2019: Britain is the center of the world 1921: Britain is the world

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHNNY!

"Outskirts Town called Greenwich"... Oh my, Greenwich is very much London haha

Greenwich, another big reason it was chosen, ordered the first acurate chronometer that can be used at sea. At first it was only available to the navy but later to the merchant fleet. Since all ships going on long voyages had to go to London(greenwich) to get the chronometer checked and since they were the first to have acurate chronometers it would be natural to choose them for the prime meridian.

Great videos you make. Thanks!

Johnny Harris the king of Explainers. This was fun to watch. Thanks for this amazing video.

The power of the British Empire, when geographical locations in relation to the UK like the Middle East and the Far East are still being used.

You omitted the whole story of developing an accurate method of measuring longitude. In the early 1700s an Englishman John Harrison responding to a competition by the British Government designed a clock that was accurate enough to keep time to Greenwich Mean Time within 2 minutes in the harsh conditions at sea. This enabled ships to calculate their local time and compare it to an accurate GMT to determine an accurate longitude measurement. Which I believe is why 100 years later they all decided to use GMT as it was already the de facto point of measurement. The whole story is probably worth a video of its own.

Yoo happy birthday bro as I was watching the video I noticed it is may 28th

you are best at telling storys and making them easy to understand ,

👁👄👁 me watching this and living in Greenwich seeing my school and house on the screen

Editing is gold level at this channel...

I actually know this one! Bear with me because there are a lot of interesting factors leading to the prime meridian. Sailors used to sail by latitude only as you could only use the stars to determine latitude - this led to of the disaster of the Isles of Scilly (one of the greatest British naval distasters in history). After this disaster (which was known to be a direct result of sailing via Latitude only), Royalty created a competition with a large monetary prize for anybody who could create an accurate time keeping device. There were already time keepers but they were typically poor which is unacceptable in terms of tracking your position on the globe - this competition saw sailors take various devices on massive voyages to test their accuracy in the salt water etc and returrn with proof of an accurate seaworthy time keeper. John Harrison won this competition to create an accurate timekeeping device (for which he was apparently never fully paid) and ended up creating the modern watch as we know it. And accurate watches at that. These "watches" were used in conjunction with an arbitrary point - the Greenwich "meridian" to determine Longitude and enabled sailors to travel without sounding and with precision never seen before. The fact that Britain is the center is due to the genius of our creations - without which travelling the world was much more about guess work. Pretty amazing history It's less about Britain saying "we claim the center of the Earth!" and more about Britain saying "we invented the method to determine your longitude at all". Other countries could of course disagree and use their own system, which would lead to their own issues. They agreed to go along with our innovation because it made sense, was universal and was appropriately lined up with the worlds greatest naval center. Definitely look into it more would make a great video! would also inform a ton of people about history looking at the comments. It saddens me a little to think this history is lost, most people who know are history buffs when I believe it's important enough to be common knowledge.

Dominican here! During the Chester Arthur government in US my country's name was already Dominican Republic. Nice to hear you mentioned my country in one of your videos because I love them.

10:30 "I'm gonna' go to the Royal Observatory this year, next year." Oh how innocent he was....

If Britain truly was the center of the world, you’d be spelling it “centre” instead. ;)

Thank you for the information. You are the best

wow thank you so much for this, i love this type of useful education

Britain: So why are we doing this? Other Countries: Well, we figured it would save us all a lot of trouble if we chose a single line on which to set our clocks. Britain: You know, we have such a line in Greenwich, at the Royal Observatory. Other Countries: Yes, well. The other reason was to reconcile timetables for trains. Britain: You know, we invented the locomotive, and the rail networks, and the bridges over which the train travels... Other Countries: Would you like to be the center of... Britain: ... _yes please!_ _Jolly good!_

Of course France kept making their own maps after the decision 🤣😂

Happy Birthday!!! 😄

Just started watching your videos very impressed I am

Johnny Harris is literally making Vox videos in his free time. Keep up this amazing work!!

I thought my ex gf was the centre of the world? Huh, guess you learn something new everyday.

Please make a video on why the start of a new day is 12 midnight . I know it could be broken down in a few simple sentence but I would love your 10-20 minute breakdown .

This is amazing info. Thank you

In China literally all the maps are centred around China.

I’m high as hell and have no idea why I’m even watching this but it’s a nice video

It makes me so happy that you pronounced Greenwich correctly.

wait your birthday is May 28th? mine too! I haven't been watching your videos for very long but this minor fact definitely makes me want to watch more :)

2:03 Small mistake - Latitude lines only go up to 90° North and 90° South. Not 180° as mentioned in the video.

Honestly the map just looks the best like that, theres only 2 ways to fit all the continents cleanly

I’m glad you did your due diligence and pronounced “Greenwich” correctly

Thanks for the work that was great

Lmfao Greenwich is not an outskirts town. Not even Croydon is consid....nevermind, getting to Croydon is a human migration

Am I the only person that noticed that “Congo” is still called Zaire on his map.

another video gem! Enjoyed the story. And of course Newfoundland has a half hour time zone. As a Canadian that comes with many eye rolls. You will enjoy Greenwich. Maybe a 22 birthday gift on the 28th.

Keep up the great work!

Ill save you 15 minutes: Because they were the best at map making and had the best navy in the 1800's when it was decided by a bunch of representatives from countries in Washington. extra reason for nerds: Also cause the first chronometer was made in uk which meant all ships had to travel to the uk to correct their longitude

imagine how that meet went Domnican Republic: no Everyone Else: damn.. shit just got serious

Oh I love this vid. Actually I just realized my science education on time zones is now almost zilch. 😂 And now I know more! Good job! 👍 How abt a new video to show time zones vertically and not just horizontally?

Great thanks really enjoyable and interesting, took me back to schooldays when I was first introduced to these concepts. I really liked the idea of Britain/Greenwich being the centre of the world.

London probably chosen as John Harrison was British and invented the sea clock to determine longitude correctly while at sea.

Low key wish Johnny could go to the international space station, see the earth from space and make an awesome video out of it - whatever topic it may be. Bet that will be super awesome.

Dude!!! What a great video!

Great Video 🤩🫶🏼🕐🕑🕒🕓🕜🕜🕘🕗🕕🕔🕓🕜🕘⏰⏳⌛

Well, 0 degrees long and lat isn't Britain, it's in the Gulf of Guinea...

10:30 "I'm going to go to the royal observatory next year" *2020 intensifies*

If you want a nice day out go and stand on the prime meridian as it goes through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. You can see Harrison's marine chronometers there too which were possibly the most significant invention of their time regarding navigation across oceans, allowing the world to develop with far, far fewer shipwrecks and effectively normalising the seas for commerce and travel.

As historical enemy, Spain and France also touches the 0° line so we're considered the center too 🧐

Might have saved 15 minutes by saying "Because of the British Empire." - _"We still remember, we who dwell_ _in these far lands, beyond the quagmire_ _the glory of the British Empire._

This is how good education should look like: you learn a story and then it’s way easier to fill it with dry facts. Thanks, Johnny!

This all can be summarized to the fact that, at the time the first proper world maps were created, The British Empire and other european powers were around their peak strenght - everything revolved around them. obviously they put themselves in the center when THEY made the maps, and later exported them to other parts of the empire. also the modern time zones were though of in the UK - thats why the +0 timezone is in the UK, precisely in Greenwich (Greenwich Mean Time - GMT) if lets say, the USA was as strong as it is today when the maps were invented, it would not be unreasonable to think the +0 would cross trough either Washington D.C, or wherever it was though of first

This is fantastic!!

I flew from Australia to Hawaii and felt like I was a time traveller... mental

FASCINATING!! I love this kind of stuff! I'm actually glad Britain ended up zero cause the international date line is now in the middle of the ocean where it impacts the least amount of people. That would be nuts if it just ran down the middle of Australia or something.

I love seeing that map of my native lands. Orygun you are the most beautiful.

You can visit the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, it's on a hill in a park with beautiful views of east London. Greenwich itself is a tourist-packed but quite charming little area within London. It's not really in the outskirts, it's more in a residential-ish area, it's just London is a gigantic city so it's not close to any of the very central things. If you pay to enter the observatory (it's now a museum) you can stand on the prime meridian on the floor, it comes out of this weird building which is "officially" where it is. There's loads of cool stuff in the museum about time and space, including the chronometers which solved the Longitude Problem (a fascinating topic in itself).

It fascinates me everytime I walk on that gold line in Greenwich

Really interesting video Johnny! As a suggestion for borders (or as a personal video) you should cover “the Stans” in Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan etc) and how their borders are arbitrary lines created by Stalin to instil tension in the region. Learning about it in one of my modules and I’m finding it really interesting!

It was such a useful video

Making this video without crediting John Harrison for making the measurement of longitude possible is an achievement in itself considering that was arguably the reason Greenwich was chosen over just the British empire

TL;DR: Britain invented everything, Britain invaded everything, we owned the whole shop, we invented time, God Save The Queen

I'm surprised there was no mention of John Harrison and his marine chronometer. He solved the longitude problem, and made accurate navigation at sea possible for the first time. This almost certainly strengthened the case for Greenwich being the prime meridian.

Thank you for hanging a map with the objectively correct projection.

Thanks, Johnny!

why am i watching this at 6am

The prime meridian goes through my garden

That's amazing! When I go pass the date line, I get one more day to use.😂

Great explanation