Inertial navigation is interesting because the error starts out at zero and then builds up with time. Let it run for long enough without recalibration and you'll have no clue where you are. Other techniques tend to have steady error bounds. (Aside from dead reckoning, of course, which is basically just inertial navigation done by hand.)

As far as quantifying that growing error, Wikipedia says it's typically less than 0.6 nautical miles per hour. An airliner after a long oceanic flight could know where it was to within a few miles, good enough to reorient and find the destination airport.

Early efforts in autonomous navigation came out of a strong desire to blow up the Soviet Union, so cruise missiles and ICBMs and such are a good place to look if you're interested in early examples.