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Why is the USA the only country that doesn’t use the metric system? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 2 days ago* by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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[–] 87 points 2 days ago (7 children)

Originally it was because the ship carrying the official metric measures from France to the US in 1793 was captured by pirates. More recently it’s because there was a near-revolt when Jimmy Carter tried to reintroduce it in the 1970s in an attempt to make the US even slightly less regressive.

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  • [–] 22 points 2 days ago (5 children)

    That reminds me of a road in AZ that had signage in KM when I was a kid. I guess it was a part of this program and it never got changed back? It was always a mindfuck suddenly seeing kms instead of miles on road trips through the area.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago

    Yeah. The attempt was made to convert everything to metric for official government documents, but that just meant most businesses paid people to convert it back for their use.

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