In October 1834, the United Kingdom Houses of Parliament were destroyed in a fire. Among the items lost were the objects that defined the imperial standards of length and mass. New prototypes were subsequently created to replace the items lost in the fire, among them a new "yardstick" ruler in 1855, and with it a new formal definition of the yard. Two copies of the ruler were subsequently presented to the United States, which in turn adopted the measure for the United States national standard yard.