spaninispa | 13 years ago | on: AsK HN: Why can't the US change to the metric system?
not really.
the mile was changed from 5000 to 5280 feet in order to make it an even number of furlongs (a furlong is 40 rods and a rod is 5.5 yard, the closest thing to 5 meters).
you're in good company though, as there're also the geographical mile, the british nautical mile, the sea mile, the russian mile, the scots mile, the irish mile, the arabic mile and finally the original 5000 feet roman mile from where everything started, at least it was consistent over the entire roman empire.
almost forgot: there's also the nautical mile but I'll spare that as it's really the only one whose definition is an angular measure applied to the earth surface instead of an arbitrarily decided unit.