How Pirates Thwarted America’s Plan to Go Metric
The true story about how pirates of the Caribbean hijacked the metric system
In the late 1700s, Massachusetts was using feet, gallons, and pounds. But just one state over, New Yorkers were using roedes, okshoofds, and ons to measure goods.
Communication was quickly becoming a nightmare. Since each state decided its own system of measures, people near borders found it impossible to conduct business. Someone would order a hundred pounds of wheat but receive a hundred ponds. It was a mess.
Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson wanted the entire country to use a single unified system. He knew France had recently implemented the metric system, and he began thinking this was exactly what the US needed.
France had supported the US through the Revolutionary War, and Jefferson was eager to strengthen ties between the two countries. He wrote a letter to some friends to ask for more details about how the metric system worked. Joseph Dombey, a French scientist, was so excited he grabbed a 1-kilogram piece of copper and a meter stick, then boarded the next ship across the ocean.
