Just that, why?
Wouldn’t be easier to have the same voltage all over the world so we don’t have to use adapters and things like that?
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When electrical grids were being constructed, the idea of globalization was still far away. There was no benefit to someone in Europe trying to legislate that they should use the same voltage and connectors as the US and Canada.
Each made their own decisions independently. In today’s world, those decisions stand because trying to change everything would be impossible.
Early electric was 100 volts for no particular reason. Radios needed 90v power for tubes, so that’s what we went with. Most electric service worldwide occurred during the WWII reconstruction, so 230 volts was used, being more efficient and using less copper in the process. Japan was an outlier, they used the older 100v US system, which by now was 110 volts.
Today North America is 120v (with the US and Canada also having 240v service for large appliances) and most of the world running at about 240 volts, with Japan remaining the only outlier.
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