Greenwich Mean Time. The global hour.

You should know that Greenwich is a borough of London known because it lies the Greenwich Mean Time. It is a term originally referring to mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. As the UK grew into an advanced maritime nation (Greenwich is well known for it as well), British mariners kept at least one chronometer on GMT -Greenwich Mean Time- in order to calculate their longitude from the Greenwich meridian. The greeenwich meridian was considered, by convention in the USA) to have longitude zero degrees in 1884. So, this marine's practice, combined with mariners from other nations drawing from "Nevil Maskelyne's" method of lunar distances based on observation at grenwich, eventually led to GMT being used worldwide as a reference time independent of location. That is why most countries set up their time or number of hours ahead of GMT or behind GMT. 

So, we can know and say that the global hour is original from London, as many things are. In Greenwich borough you can visit the Royal Observatory of Greenwich and his history. From there there is the laser that is marking the prime meridian. 

And from Greenwich to the Elizabeth tower. Surely you should know it but with another name, the original but the old name: The tower of clock (most known as Big Ben, but Big Ben is the name of the bell, not the tower). From 2012 is was re-named with Elizabeth tower in commemoration to Queen Elizabeth in his Diamond Jubilee year event. 

Is one of the most famous landmarks of London and surely the most visited by tourists in their trips. It lies together with The Parliament of London (the famous parliament, because it is the origin of most bi-cameral governments in the world) and next to them there is the huge Westminster Abbey (highly recommended to visit, but 18 pounds to get in. Maybe because Darwin is buried inside? Do not know). 

The connexion of Big Ben with The Greenwich meridian is that the Clock gives us the global hour 0 in the world. If you want to have the exact hour in your wrist clock (or pocket clock as english style) you can stand front of the Elizabeth Tower and set it.

Curiosity: the Greenwich meridian passes through the UK, France, Spain, Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo, Ghana and Queen Maud Land in Antarctica. So, being in the same meridian as the UK (the 0 meridian), why Spain has different hour? (and specially one hour more?). The answer comes returning back in Franco's era. The dictator Fsco. Franco had few like-ability to English people from the UK. If we add the fact that the dictator did everything agreed with german's dictator, Hitler, we find the solution here: Franco unilaterally decided to change the original hour that we had and swapped for german hour. So, we have different hour from English people from Franco's times only and because of him. And it is curious that any government before has not change it. 

take care :)