The solar system has been brought to life in a spectacular display over London's skyline. The show above the Royal Greenwich Observatory was organised to promote the launch this month of Sky 3D - Europe's first 3D TV channel. Nine helium-filled "planets" up to 20ft-wide were illuminated and floated above the landmark. Read more
The Royal Observatory, Greenwich (formerly the Royal Greenwich Observatory or RGO) was commissioned in 1675 by King Charles II, with the foundation stone being laid on 10 August.
Hoping the weather isn't as stormy as the Bard's play, the Oxford Shakespeare Company will be staging The Tempest in the gardens of Greenwich's Royal Observatory next month. Read more
Anarchists had been looking to wage war for years but attacks were mostly confined to mainland Europe, particularly France. But that changed on the afternoon of February 15, 1894, when Mr Thackeray and Mr Hollis in the Lower Computing Room of the Royal Observatory, heard a "sharp and clear detonation, followed by a noise like a shell going through the air". Read more
From 1672 to 1674, Sir Jonas Moore, surveyor-general of the English Ordnance Office, and an enthusiastic supporter of the recently-founded Royal Society, was responsible for supplying armaments to the English Navy during the third Anglo-Dutch War. When the English Fleet failed to distinguish itself in engagement after engagement, it began loudly to be suggested that the problem lay with the logistics: its officials were accused of having deliberately withheld essential military supplies during a series of sea battles off the Schonveld. The Ordnance Office was forced to issue an official denial: Moore himself had sailed out with six great ammunition ships to replenish the Navy's supplies of gunpowder and shot. Far from there having been a shortfall, quantities of gunpowder had, they insisted, been returned to Portsmouth after the battle was over.
In 1675 Sir Jonas Moore took on responsibility for building an astronomical observatory at Greenwich, with a view to compiling the kind of accurate astronomical tables he believed would help the English Navy to perform better. The £500 allocated to Christopher Wren for the building project was raised by selling off those 690 barrels of surplus gunpowder from the six ship-loads Moore had accompanied to the Nore sandbank at the mouth of the Thames, to supply the English Fleet in battle.
Greenwich is one of the coolest "uncool" places there is in London. It's not profoundly unfashionable - rather somewhere where it doesn't occur to people that there is anything more than a few museums, a nice park and the Cutty Sark. The really adventurous might know about the Trafalgar Tavern or venture out to Greenwich market on a Sunday afternoon, but essentially, Greenwich is still relatively undiscovered for one of the great regions of London. Read more
After 2am tomorrow, British Summer Time ends. Clocks must be set back an hour, falling into line with this clock, The Shepherd Clock, displaying Greenwich Mean Time.