dead reckoning

On this day in 1969, the luxury ocean liner the Queen Elizabeth 2, in service until 2008 and since last year, a floating hotel in Dubai, began her maiden voyage from the shipyards in Southhampton to New York, and was the first private, commercial vessel to avail itself of the US Navy’s Global Positioning System constellation of artificial satellites, heralding the end of navigation by compass and sextant. Coincidentally, also on this day in 2000, Bill Clinton made accurate and detailed GPS telemetry available to the public for any venture.