Atlas Obscura on Slate is a blog about the world’s hidden wonders. Like us on Facebook and Tumblr, or follow us on Twitter. For better or worse, the United States remains one of only three countries ...

In 1975, the United States passed the Metric Conversion Act. The legislation was meant to slowly transition its units of measurement from feet and pounds to meters and kilograms, bringing the US up to ...

We Americans measure things our own way. Our yardsticks are marked in feet and inches, measures that are unfathomable to foreigners, nearly all of whom have been brought up in a decimals-only ...

Australia is taking its first brisk steps toward conversion to a fully metric system of weights and measures over the next 10 years…. The arguments for conversion to metric in Australia have been ...

1 In late 1975, President Gerald Ford had a unique vision for making America great again. He wanted to embrace a French invention – one that Thomas Jefferson himself had championed. He wanted America ...

I was at the supermarket recently when I took note of something my eyes had passed thousands of times before. The cans of my favorite sodas were 12 ounces, while the bottles were 2 liters. It caught ...