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by p_l 1031 days ago
Industrial revolution had nothing to do with it, given that the inch USA uses today is an inch created by a pissed off engineer (gauge block Inventor Carl Johansson) in European company making gauge blocks, who defined an inch to be 25.4 mm @ 20 degrees Celsius in 1912 - created by taking a reasonable metric approximation in between British and American inches.

The popularity of Johansson's blocks is Brits changed their definition of inch in 1930 and USA followed in 1933. Most countries that still used inches started to use "industrial inch" of 25.4mm in 1930s, the rest went metric.