Aaron Andrade, age 10, of Salt Lake City, Utah, for his question:
WHEN WAS THE FIRST POSTAGE STAMP ISSUED?
Today the United States Postal Service is one of the world's largest organizations. Started in 1971 to replace the U.S. Post Office Department, the agency today operates more than 32,000 post offices and employs more than 740,000 people. The organization has an annual budget of more than $10 billion. It is directed by an 11‑member board of governors.
Billions of stamped letters and packages move from one city to another each year in every part of the world. The postal service has advanced a lot in the past 140 years.
The world's first postage stamp was issued in Great Britain on May 6, 1840. And only a few years later, in 1847, the first adhesive postage stamps were introduced in the United States.
But the postal service is much more than just 140 years old. That's just how long it has been since postage stamps have been available. The postal service actually started more than 5,000 years ago.
Historians tell us that fast couriers or runners were used to carry messages as early as 3000 B.C. The earliest letters were carved on clay or bronze with later messages appearing on bone or wood. Still later came messages written on animal skins or papyrus.
There was a postal system in Persia about 500 B.C. The Greek historian Herodotus at that time said: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from their swift completion of their appointed rounds."
That message, which is almost 2,500 years old, is today inscribed on the front of the General Post Office in New York City.
The first modern postal system was created by Caesar Augustus, the first Roman emperor, about the time Jesus Christ was living. But when the Roman empire fell, the world was without an organized communications system until the 1300s.
History also shows us that in the late 1200s China had a postal system of horses and messengers that worked out of more than 10,000 postal stations. And the Aztec in Mexico and Central America had a parcel post system to distribute fresh fish among their villages during the 1200s.
All of the early postal systems worked without postage stamps.
More than 25 billion postage stamps are issued in the United States each year now.
Many times during the year special stamps are issued. Called commemorative stamps, they honor outstanding events, places, industries or organizations and distinguished people who are dead.
No living person may be shown on a United States postage stamp, although this isn't true of stamps in other countries.