October 13, 2026: The World Agrees on Zero

Sailors had been able to calculate their position at sea for well over a century by the time the world finally agreed on where longitude should start counting from.

On October 13, 1884, delegates from twenty five nations meeting in Washington, D.C. voted 22 to 1, with France and Brazil abstaining, to establish the meridian running through Britain's Royal Observatory at Greenwich as the world's official prime meridian. The vote didn't solve a technical problem, that had been settled generations earlier by English clockmaker John Harrison's marine chronometer, it solved a political one, turning a patchwork of competing national reference points into a single shared standard.

The episode traces the negotiation behind that vote and the long chain of systems, from railroad schedules to modern satellite timing, that still run on the agreement reached that day.

This is bsnsHistory, the daily podcast about the moments when business quietly reshaped the world.

Written and hosted by Ron Trucks. Research and editing by Rodney Russ. Sound design by Angela Cahoy. Music by Cody Martin and Soundstripe.

For more daily business stories, visit www.bsnsDAILYpodcasts.com