Photo by Nils Geylen. Thanks! Calling all metric system nerds and Seattle history heads: today is the 217th anniversary of the day the French National Assembly said "Go!" to an official effort to create a metric system. In 1795, France voted the new "meter" into effect as the national unit of measurement and hasn't looked back since; it took the U.S. of A. until 1988 to pass a similar resolution and, 20 years later,......