The U.S. and Britain are going to standardize screw threads. No great oratory attends this homely step, no military pageantry, yet it may be as important as half a dozen formal treaties.
The Americans will sacrifice their cherished Sellers screw thread profile in favor of a slightly modified British Whitworth profile, and the British will give up their 55° angle of thread in favor of the U.S. 60° angle. The agreement will eventually save millions of dollars, make cooperation in war & peace easier.
Universal & Permanent. Eli Whitney, an 18th Century Massachusetts Yankee, went broke after his cotton gin invention was...