ISA | Timeline

SundialStandards Timeline

2000 BC Hammurabi, King of Babylon, codifies first known legal standards. Babylonians also use a standard set of stones for weighing objects.
150 BC to 400 AD Roman soldiers keep track of distance traveled by counting paces. Roman Empire spreads knowledge of measuring throughoutknown world.
1215 One complaint of English nobility seeking Magna Carta is a desire for a standard set of weights and measures. Forty-nine years later King Edward I orders a permanent measuring stick to serve as a master standard yardstick for the entire kingdom.
1400s Mechanical clocks first appear in Italy. The ability to measure time precisely is a key to further scientific standard setting.
1820 The United States Pharmacopeia Convention becomes first U.S. standards organization, setting standards for drugs.
1840s Greenwich Mean Time becomes the first international standard for setting time.
1863 An international statistical conference declares uniformity of weights and measures crucial for international commerce. The declaration foreshadows today's push toward international standards.
1894 Underwriters Laboratories forms both to set standards and test products to make sure they meet the standards.
1895 The National Fire Protection Association organizes after fire insurers and sprinkler installers realize there is no way to know how reliable sprinkler systems are. At the time, there was no installation, pipe size or spacing standard. Today, the group is known for publishing the National Fire Code.
1898 Railway safety concerns spur the formation of the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). Today, it sets standards for everything from crayon toxicity to thermal insulation factors.
1901 Congress establishes the National Bureau of Standards.
1904 Downtown Baltimore erupts in flames. Firefighters arriving from neighboring cities can't assist because their hoses don't hook to local hydrants.
1914 American Society of Mechanical Engineers writes a boiler code to help prevent explosions. It starts as a private, voluntary code, but eventually governments here and abroad adopt portions of the code and make it mandatory.
1918 American National Standards Institute (ANSI) forms to offer the first umbrella group for the burgeoning number of private, voluntary associations writing standards.
1948 Three years after its formation, ISA publishes its first standard on thermocouples (temperature measuring devices).
1972 Proving that no standard lasts forever, atomic timekeeping replaces Greenwich Mean Time as the world standard.
1988 Along with a broadened role in helping companies speed commercialization of new technology, the National Bureau of Standards gets its new name, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Its role as an economic development engine is solidified.