Decimal Day
Decimal day was a special day in Britain where people changed the way they counted numbers. Instead of using the old way of counting, which was based on groups of twelve, they switched to counting with groups of ten. This happened on the 15th of February, 1971.
Before decimal day, Britain used something called the "Imperial system" to measure things like weight, height, and all sorts of other things. But the problem with the Imperial system was that it was really complicated. There were lots of different units and each one had a different number of divisions. For example, when people measured weight, they used "stones" and "pounds". There were 14 pounds in a stone, and 16 ounces in a pound. This made it really hard to do math with these units.
Decimal day changed all this. People started using a new system, called the "metric system". The metric system is much simpler because everything is based on groups of ten. When people measure length, for example, they use metres, and there are 100 centimetres in a metre, and 1000 millimetres in a metre. This makes it much easier to do math because you don't have to remember lots of different conversion factors.
So, decimal day was a big day for Britain because it made things simpler and easier to understand. It's like when you learn to count from one to ten instead of from one to twelve!
Before decimal day, Britain used something called the "Imperial system" to measure things like weight, height, and all sorts of other things. But the problem with the Imperial system was that it was really complicated. There were lots of different units and each one had a different number of divisions. For example, when people measured weight, they used "stones" and "pounds". There were 14 pounds in a stone, and 16 ounces in a pound. This made it really hard to do math with these units.
Decimal day changed all this. People started using a new system, called the "metric system". The metric system is much simpler because everything is based on groups of ten. When people measure length, for example, they use metres, and there are 100 centimetres in a metre, and 1000 millimetres in a metre. This makes it much easier to do math because you don't have to remember lots of different conversion factors.
So, decimal day was a big day for Britain because it made things simpler and easier to understand. It's like when you learn to count from one to ten instead of from one to twelve!
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