Ever wonder why America sticks to inches and pounds? Turns out, pirates played a surprising role in keeping the metric system ...

The United States could be using the metric system — the universal system of measurement that every industrialized nation uses except the U.S. — if it wasn’t for a bunch of pirates 224 years ...

The US almost adopted the metric system—but a ship carrying the official standards was intercepted by pirates. That’s right, pirates may have changed the course of American measurement forever. This ...

At press time, only three of the world's countries don't use the metric system: the United States, Myanmar and Liberia. But it didn't have to be this way. On this day in 1866, the Metric Act was ...

Some strongly opposed metric units, and many were content to use familiar measures. Meanwhile, most of the rest of the world went metric. After Great Britain voted to adopt the metric system in 1965, ...

Back in the 70s, President Ford and Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 to coordinate and plan for the eventual conversion to the metric system in the United States.

The US’s continued use of the imperial system can be attributed to several factors: Historical Legacy: By the time the metric system gained popularity in the 19th century, the imperial system ...