LONG ISLAND CITY

long island city, formerly a city of queens county, new york, u.s.a., and since the 1st of january 1898 the first ward of the borough of queens, new york city. pop. (1880) 17,129, (1890) 30,506, (1900) 48,272, of whom 15,899 were foreign-born. it has a river front, on east river and long island sound, of 10 m., and is the eastern terminal and the headquarters of the long island railway, having a large y.m.c.a. building (the gift of mrs russell sage) for employees of this railway. among manufactures are chemicals, pottery, varnish, silk, &c., and there are oil-storage warehouses. most of the borough offices of queens borough are in long island city, which was formerly the county-seat of queens county. the first settlement within the limits of what subsequently became long island city was made in 1640 by a dutch blacksmith, hendrick harmensen, who soon afterward was murdered by an indian. other settlers, both dutch and english, soon followed, and established detached villages, which became known as hunter's point, blissville, astoria, ravenswood, dutch kills, middleton and steinway. in 1853 this group of villages, by that time virtually one community, was called long island city, and it was formally incorporated under that name in 1870. in 1871-1872 the city was laid out by a commission of which general w. b. franklin was president. political convictions, economic considerations and fear combined to make the residents in this region largely loyalist in their attitude during the war of independence. from 1776 to 1783 british troops occupied newtown, a village to the s. e. in january 1776 the committee on the state of new york in congress reported a resolution that "whereas a majority of the inhabitants of queens county, in the colony of new york, being incapable of resolving to live and die free men,... all such persons as voted against sending deputies to the present convention in new york ... be put out of the protection of the united colonies," &c., an action which led to the arrest and imprisonment of many of the accused persons. see j. s. kelsey, _history of long island city_ (long island city, 1896). longitude (from lat. _longitudo_, "length"), the angle which the terrestrial meridian from the pole through a point on the earth's surface makes with some standard meridian, commonly that of greenwich. it is equal to the difference between local time on the standard meridian, and at the place defined, one hour of time corresponding to 15° difference of longitude. formerly each nation took its own capital or principal observatory as the standard meridian from which longitudes were measured. another system had a meridian passing through or near the island of ferro, defined as 20° w. of paris, as the standard. while the system of counting from the capital of the country is still used for local purposes, the tendency in recent years is to use the meridian of greenwich for nautical and international purposes. france, however, uses the meridian of the paris observatory as its standard for all nautical and astronomical purposes (see time). in astronomy, the longitude of a celestial body is the distance of its projection upon the ecliptic from the vernal equinox, counted in the direction west to east from 0° to 360°.