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The English System of measurement was created around the time of King Henry the VIII in England. The system of measurement was created impart that there was no standard system of measuring distance since the fall of the roman empire. The story goes that they took King Henry the VIII's foot and measure it for the new standard and called it the foot. They then divided this foot into twelve equal parts and called them inches. The measurement became the world standard as the British Empire spread throughout the world. The system became less popular around the turn of the 20th century when a new and much easier system was developed called the metric system. The use of fractions within the inches was impart the main reason for the world adopting the newer metric system which was easier to calculate and measure because it uses decimals based on the powers of ten rather than fractions which are more mathematically troublesome  to calculate. The English System is still used today, however most of the world still uses the Metric System.

The Basic English System:

1 Foot is Equal to 12 inches.

An inch is 1/12 of a foot.

An inch can be subdivided into 1/2's  1/4's  1/8's  1/16's and so on in doubling units.

There are 3 feet to a yard.

There are 5280 feet to a mile.

16 Ounces to a Pound

2000 pounds to a Ton

3 Teaspoons to a 1 Table Spoon

16 Table Spoons to 1 Cup or 8 ounces to 1 Cup

2 Cups to 1 Pint

2 Pints to 1 Quart

4 Quarts to 1 Gallon

The English System can be converted to the Metric System by using the conversion factor that 1 inch equals 2.54 cm's.