TODAY’S NATIONAL DAY, 11/1/25 – INTERNATIONAL PRIME MERIDIAN DAY!

It could have been cutting your hometown in half at 0° 00′ 05.33″ longitude and making it famous for no good reason, instead of Greenwich, England. But nooo, Greenwich had an observatory in 1851, when British Royal Astronomer Sir George Airy whacked up the world into 360 meridians, making today

INTERNATIONAL PRIME MERIDIAN DAY!

In 1881, 125 nations of the world met and made Greenwich Mean Time official when they divided the world into 24 time zones.

The Prime Meridian divides The Eastern and Western Hemispheres of the Earth, and continues around to the other side of the world where it becomes the International Date line.

All things considered, the imaginary line has to be somewhere for the purposes of international communication and navigation, so Greenwich is as good a place as any, just like the equator that Sir Airy decided should be in fun places where nobody wears any clothes.

Everybody’s got to be somewhere.

•Suggested Activities: Learning more about science.