However, accidental events such as deviations in maritime routes and interception by the corsairs prevent this from coming to fruition.

Why doesn’t the US have a metric system?

The fact that in the United States they haven’t adopted the metric system is well known and you may never consider why. To answer this question we must go back 230 years, when in 1793, French scientist Joseph Dombey sailed to the newly formed United States at the request of Thomas Jefferson bringing two objects that could change America.

The first is a metal cylinder, the mass of which is exactly one kilogram. The second is a copper bar along the new proposed distance measure, meters. He never achieves the tasks entrusted to him and, in general, that’s why The United States has a unit of measure that is arguably unique in the modern world, being one of the few countries to retain its unique shape and size.

Dombey’s ship veers off course, is captured by British privateers (pirates with government authorization) and the scientist dies on the island of Montserrat while waiting to be rescued. Taken to the Montserrat prison, they never heard from him again. The news of his death was conveyed to the Committee of Public Instructions on the 27th Vendémiaire year III (27 October 1794 translated from the calendar of the French Republic).

Jefferson wanted something new, more rational, and he wasn’t the only one. In the first State of the Union address in 1790, George Washington stated: “Uniformity in the currency, weights, and measures of the United States is an object of great importance, and, I am sure, will be given due attention.”

Some of the pirates opposed the plans of the United States

The cylinders and rods brought by Dombey, formerly owned by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, were requested by Jefferson because the current British system was deemed completely unreasonable.

First, when Great Britain settled in America, it brought with it uneven versions of scales, measures and coins. To make things more confusing, individual settlements adopt their own local weights and measures. For example, starting in 1700, Pennsylvania took control of its own size, and other territories soon followed.

Dombey sailed from the port of Le Havre in April 1794 for Philadelphia. A storm diverted the ship’s course towards the Caribbean Sea where two corsairs with ill intentions they surrounded the frigate Dombey. He tried to disguise himself and escape by swapping his clothes for those of a sailor, but was unsuccessful.

Pirate they took Dombey prisoner, transferred him to the island of Montserrat for ransom and they auctioned off all the loot from the ship, including two pieces of copper: rulers and weights by standard meters and standard kilograms, intended for the United States to adopt the metric system, which never happened.