World Post Day

In case you missed it, yesterday was World Post Day. According to a write-up in The Times of India...

"World Post Day is celebrated on October 9 to mark the anniversary of the establishment of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) in 1874 in the Swiss capital Berne. It was declared World Post Day by the UPU Congress held in Tokyo in 1969.

"From the earliest times in history, 'postal services' existed in the form of messengers who travelled large distances on foot or horseback. In the 1600s and 1700s, many countries set up national postage systems and entered into bilateral agreements for the exchange of mail between countries. By the late 1800s there was a large web of bilateral agreements that made the distribution of international mail complicated, non-transparent and inefficient.

"In 1863, Montgomery Blair, Postmaster General in the US organised a conference of representatives from 15 European and American countries. On September 15, 1874, Heinrich von Stephan, a senior postal official in the North German Confederation (an area that now forms parts of Germany, Poland and Russia), opened a conference in Berne, Switzerland, with delegates from 22 countries. On October 9, 1874, the delegates signed the Treaty of Berne and established the General Postal Union."

For more on World Post Day, click here.