[chungy]

Connecting 1 mile to 5280 feet happened many centuries after the medieval period. Such precision wasn't really possible nor desired before the 18th century.

To be specific, 5280 feet = 1 mile didn't happen until 1959 and the United States needed higher precision and remove all the fuzziness out of the units. It might be inconvenient on some aspects, but it was also "close enough" to what miles were already established to be.

[_dain_]

>To be specific, 5280 feet = 1 mile didn't happen until 1959 and the United States needed higher precision and remove all the fuzziness out of the units. It might be inconvenient on some aspects, but it was also "close enough" to what miles were already established to be.

uh what? are you sure you're not mixing that up with the international geophysical year or something? the mile has been 1760 yards since before the US even existed. it's called the imperial system because of the british empire. they couldn't have done the great trigonometrical survey of india without an accurate mile.

[twic]

1959 must be referring to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_yard_and_pound