In 1958, MIT fraternity pledges measured the Harvard Bridge by laying freshman Oliver Smoot down end to end as a human measuring stick. Their final measurement? 364.4 Smoots + 1 ear, a measurement that is still marked on the bridge today. The markings are still repainted today and have even become useful to Boston and Cambridge police for identifying locations along the bridge. Google joined in on the joke too, adding “Smoots” as a measurement option in Google Earth and its unit converter. Smoot himself went on to become president of the International Organization for Standardization, the organization responsible for developing measurement standards worldwide—a pretty ironic ending for the man who accidentally became a unit of measurement.(Historic Vids)