The Metric Revolution

It seems that on this day in 1790, the French proletariat which had just taken over the country in the ongoing French Revolution decided to create what became the metric system. One thing I didn't know but that my nerdly mind finds very cool:

The system was elegant. All conversions were based on 10, with Greek prefixes (deka-, hecto-, kilo-) for multiples and Latin (deci-, centi-, milli-) for fractions.

I never realized that the multiple and fractional prefixes were from different languages. I guess kilo is Greek for 1000 and milli is the Latin word for the same number, and thus the etymology of the words explains the difference between kilometer and millimeter.

Among the changes that were made that didn't catch on: the 10-day week and the 10-hour day.

Be sure to check out the (short but great) article.