This document provides an overview of standards and standardization. It discusses how early civilizations developed basic measurement systems and how standardization became more important during the Industrial Revolution. It describes some key events in the development of formal standardization, including Sir Joseph Whitworth inventing the first nationally standardized system - the Whitworth screw thread - in 1841. The emergence of the rail network in the mid-1800s exacerbated the need for standardization to reduce costs and inefficiencies. This led to the founding of the Engineering Standards Committee in 1901 and the British Standards Institution in 1901, which developed the first British standard and concept of a kitemark.