European governments offered huge prizes to inspire a solution to the longitude problem.
Finding longitude at sea became urgent when European states competed for overseas empires and maritime trade.
Starting in the late 1500s, Europe’s major seafaring nations—Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, the Venetian Republic, England, and France—offered vast sums of money to anyone who could solve the longitude problem. These prizes stimulated an inventive outpouring from both the greatest scientific minds and the humblest tinkerers.
