Long story short.
Once upon a time, in a barbaric, pre-internet age with tall ships and silly hats, there was a revolution. Long story short, George Washington bested the Brits into leaving the Thirteen Colonies. A short time later, when George was busy building the new country, the French decided that they liked this whole ‘revolution’ idea and went ahead with their own. But they kind of overdid it. When the revolutionaries came to Monsieur Robespierre and asked him, ‘Monsieur, what do we change, now that we won?’. And he said ‘Yes’. So they did. They changed everything, including the calendar, common language, and measurement system.
As mentioned earlier, good ol George Washingmachine was busy building the new country and noticed that while the French went full insane with other changes, their measurement system was actually really good. So he decided to adopt it in the newly formed US. Especially since the former system was called the Imperial system, he didn’t just overthrow the Imperial system of governance just to keep the Imperial system of measurements, did he? So he sent a letter to La Rochelle via the era-appropriate equivalent of an e-mail – an envoy on a tall ship.
Professor from Sorbon University.
When the envoy reached France, the revolutionaries were overjoyed. They actually wanted their new measurement system to extend to as many countries and territories as possible. Therefore, they not only decided to send the measurement standards, like a one-meter-long rod, a one-gram weight, a kilogram weight, etc., to the Americas, but they also sent a professor from Sorbon University to help with the implementation of the system in the newest country on Earth.
However, fate had it another way. Fate in the form of pirates of the Caribbean. They boarded the French ship carrying measurement standards and the professor. As they couldn’t find any value in the measurement standards carried on the ship, they threw them overboard. They captured the learned French envo, and sank the ship.
Imperial system.
The captain of the pirate ship, who was a tiny bit smarter than his crew, managed to recognize that the professor is a valuable prisoner and can be ransomed for quite a few dublons. Unfortunately, the capitan contracted a very common illness among the pirates: acute lead poisoning. The first officer who shot him and took command didn’t know the value of the French professor and left him on the first deserted island he came across. Where the man died a few months later.
George Wellington, when he didn’t get any response to his letter, felt he was ignored by the French revolutionaries. And since no one leaves the president of the USA on ‘seen’ he decided that the US will remain on the imperial system.
And that is how the pirates of the Caribbean have cemented the centuries old American foot fetish.
