7. Why is A 440 Hz?

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In the past, there was no international ‘standard tuning’. So a flute from France was tuned to a different note than a flute from England.
Over the past 500 years, so since Medieval and early Renaissance times, the pitch of the note A (and therefore all the notes) has risen by about a minor third, but with large variations throughout. In the early 17th century, pitch levels ranged by as much as a Perfect 5th.
This, obviously, wasn’t very efficient. So after a lot of discussion, an international conference in London in 1939 decided that the A above middle C was to be tuned to 440 Hz in all countries from then on. This is known as the ‘international standard pitch’ or ‘concert pitch’.