American inventor of the standard shipping container—a steel box spanning about 40 feet on the long side and eight on the other two, which could be stuffed with cargo and hoisted onto lorries, trains, ships or planes with equal ease. The container did "more than all trade agreements in the past 50 years put together" to boost globalisation, according to The Economist. McLean turbocharged the container's global adoption by authorising the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) to distribute the patent free.
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