International overseas freight container sizes and specifications

They are simple steel boxes, 20 or 40 feet long and 8.5 feet high, with a pair of doors at one end and a wooden floor - truck trailers without wheels.  Who would have thought such an ordinary creation would change the world? The cargo container has done just that, transforming the global economy in ways comparable to the telephone and the jet plane by making the world a little smaller.

The box altered the future of nations when manufacturing operations, chasing lower labor costs, sprouted throughout Asia, particularly in China. These changes were all set in motion 50 years ago this Wednesday, when a converted tanker ship set sail from Newark, N.J., to Houston laden with 58 converted truck bodies filled with cargo. Never before had such a voyage taken place.

Today containers dominate global trade, with ships specially built to carry thousands of them criss-crossing the oceans.

- Adapted from a story By GREGORY RICHARDS, The Virginian-Pilot .

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