can someone explain to me why PAL territories went with err PAL in the first place? Should have just copied the US for 60hz. Not just for games but for TV as well.
Actually, it goes quite far in the past.
It partly comes from the way electricity is produced. If generators runs at a higher RPM, the AC power is produced at an higher frequency. Because of powerplants choices, AC power is 60Hz in US, mostly 50Hz in Europe (the reasons are complex and partly politics).
That's apparently one of the reasons of the refresh rate for video. Not the only one, though (Japan is both 50/60Hz for AC power, but they followed US guidance for standards IIRC).
There's other reasons: 50Hz allow more resolution (the number of lines per second is the same in both, so you get 576 lines in 50Hz when you only have 480 in 60Hz). 50Hz also allow a better movie->TV transition (it's a small speed-up of the original 24Hz, where 60Hz require a 3:2 pulldown with gives worse results).
On TOP of that, there's color encodings for broadcasts/composite/S-Video signals. Europe mostly use PAL, which gives better colors (France used SECAM for broadcasts, often a bit better quality-wise, but since Russia chosed the same system, it wasn't used in others western countries). NTSC specification use a different color encoding, which usually gives worse results for mostly the same bandwidth.
That being said, again, a lot of those choices were strategic and politic. A way to differenciate your country from the others.