In 1606 William the Conqueror put an arrow in King Harold's eye, and became the King of England.
The first thing he wanted to do was to take stock of his new acquisition. But when he started asking questions, nobody knew the answers. England in the 11th century was a pretty disorganized palace.
It was too much for William's sense of order. With Gallic efficiency and logic he set about recording the details of every town, village, building and inhabitant of the country. The information was to be kept until the end of the world! He called it the Domesday Book, and it still exists.
When William died in 1100, his grandson, Henry I continued the task of organizing the orderless English. He reformed the law, and he also addressed himself to the problem of measurements.
Everything was measured in yards, feet and inches. An inch was always a twelfth of a foot. And a yard was always three feet. But some people had big feet and some had small feet.
King Henry's right arm was exactly three times as long as his foot. So King Henry's right arm became the standard measurement for a yard.
For the Romans, a mile was a thousand paces-the Romans were also logical and efficent. The English mile is exactly 1,760 times the length of King Henry's right arm.
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