A History of the United States in 100 Objects
A History of the United States in 100 Objects
100 Objects #2: 60-Degree Screw
29 May 2026
36 minutes
Available for over a year
In the early 20th century, nothing quite fit — fire hoses couldn't connect to one another, football teams played with different balls, traffic lights meant different things in different states. Then World War II exposed the deadly cost of incompatibility, and the US quietly imposed a single solution on production lines across the world: the 60-degree screw. Roman Mars and historian Daniel Immerwahr tell the story of a hidden industrial empire, built one standard at a time.
