A Greenwich canvas and beyond / Margaret Kaye.

This handy companion, a broad-based leisurely foray through two millenia at Greenwich, focuses on the events before and after Canaletto painted, in 1752, the completed Royal Seamen's Hospital fronting the Thames. On the hill behind, the Royal Observatory, built in 1676, provided the very expert astronomy that led to the local time transforming the world: the much revered Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and Longitude Line 0.00º (Prime Meridian). Now the old fishing village and royal estate, 10 Km (6 mi) downriver from central London, is a World Heritage Site displaying spellbinding history, science, and seamanship. It began as a short article about a day out to Greenwich and then snowballed. The result is but a few basic stitches in a titanic tapestry of history, geography, science, astronomy, and maritime endeavour. The dates are included merely as signposts and stepping stones to accompany the reader when wandering through, perhaps in wonderment, two thousand years of events. -- from Amazon.