Why Doesn't the US Use the Metric System?

Everything Everywhere Daily

Gary Arndt | Glassbox Media

History, Education

4.8 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 20 August 2020

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Of the 193 countries in the United Nations, exactly three haven’t adopted the widespread use of the metric system: Myanmar, Liberia, and the United States of America. Of those three, the US is the country that really stands out. It has the biggest economy in the world, does an incredible amount of international trade, and has immigrants from every country in the world If there was one country on paper that should be using the metric system, it is the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Of the one hundred and ninety three countries in the United Nations, exactly three haven't adopted the widespread use of the metric system,
0:07.0	Myanmar, Liberia, and the United States of America.
0:10.0	Of those three, the U.S. is the country that really stands out. It has the biggest
0:14.3	economy in the world, does an incredible amount of international trade, has immigrants
0:18.3	from every country, and is even the home to the United Nations. If there was one country on paper that
0:24.0	should be using the metric system, it's the United States. Yet we don't. Find out
0:29.6	why Americans are still stuck using feed and inches on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is brought to you by audible.com. If you like to listen to audio content while you go about your day and if you're
0:53.3	listening to this you clearly must then I'd definitely check out audible
0:56.9	selection of audio books if you happen to find today's topic interesting I'd
1:00.6	suggest the title whatever happened to the metric system by John Bellimins
1:04.7	Marciano. He gives a far deeper dive into the history of America and our flirtation
1:09.2	with the metric system. You can get a free one month trial Audible and two free audio books by going to
1:15.3	Audible Trial.com slash everything everywhere or by clicking on the link in the
1:20.2	show notes. The story of the United States and the metric system goes back to the beginning of the country.
1:30.2	Establishing a system of weights and measures is actually written into the US Constitution in Article 1, Section 8, where it says Congress shall have the power to fix standards of weights and measures.
1:40.0	The US Constitution was written in 1788 and the measurement system we call the metric system was created right around that time in France.
1:48.0	The problem was it wasn't exactly at the same time and when the US first started looking for a system, the metric system didn't exist.
1:56.0	Establishing a system of measurement was actually one of the very first things the United States government said about doing.
2:02.0	It was in Washington's very first
2:03.8	State of the Union address as well as his second and third. The very first Congress
2:08.5	in 1789 created a committee to look into the matter and in 1790 the committee led by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson issued the report
2:17.1	called a plan for establishing uniformity in the coinage, weights, and measure of the
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