May is a month full of celebrations—everything from May Day and Cinco de Mayo to Mother’s Day and Memorial Day. Largely forgotten in the cornucopia of May celebrations, however, is National Metric ...

December 23, 2025, marks the 50th anniversary of the Metric Conversion Act, designed to bring US weights and measures in line with the rest of the world. The United States is one of the last holdouts ...

Ever wondered what happened to our country’s conversion to the metric system? I did too. So, I did some digging and turned up some dead bodies in the process. Advertisement Article continues below ...

Canadians measure their height in feet and inches but record distances in kilometers, express the air temperature in degrees ...

Announcing his quirky run for the White House on Wednesday, Lincoln Chafee may have inadvertently touched one of the more obscure third rails of American politics: conversion to the metric system, or ...

Expats and tourists from the United States come to Costa Rica with a handicap. While most of the rest of the world, including Costa Rica, is using the metric system, the U.S., despite several efforts ...

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 ...

On April 19, 1973, Wilson Riles, superintendent of public instruction for California. called to announce that beginning in 1976 the metric system would be taught in California. The reaction from the ...