There's also the notion that determining the longitude is much harder than determining the latitude. Figuring out latitude is easy if you can measure angles to

There's also the notion that determining the longitude is much harder than determining the latitude. Figuring out latitude is easy if you can measure angles to stars or the sun at noon and is something that people have been doing for quite long. Figuring out the longitude requires an accurate clock and was something that had a lot of strategic value in the seventeenth century. To the point where multiple kings and goverments at the time created rewards to incentivize scientists of the day to work on that problem.