The most interesting facts about mail. History of letters: interesting facts Letters are not only valuable text
Despite the advent of the Internet, which has made communication accessible and convenient for people from different parts of the world, the postal service still exists and is not going to give up its positions.
In the ancient states of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Persia, China, the Roman Empire, there was a well-established state postal service: written messages were sent with foot and horse messengers on the basis of a relay race.
Mail forwarding services in the form known to us first appeared in Britain during the Wars of the Rose and the Rose, when King Henry VII began to receive regular reports of the movement of his army.
The word "mail" comes from the Polish. poczta and ital. posta. The latter, in turn, arose from (posta) and late Latin posita, which is most likely an abbreviation for statio posita in ... - a stop, a station for variable horses, located in a certain place. Thus, originally this word meant a station for the exchange of mail horses or couriers. The word post in the meaning of "mail" was first used in the XIII century.
In 1661, Colonel Henry Bishop, then the Postmaster General of England, invented the postmark. He was so fed up with customer complaints about late mail that he came to the conclusion that it was necessary to put a date on every letter. The idea quickly spread around the world.
In the 19th century, the Royal Mail was the most efficient in the world, delivering mail 12 times a day. During the First World War, the delivery frequency dropped to six times a day in London and four in the countryside. In remote areas, mail was delivered only once a day. Today, throughout Britain, mail is delivered once a day, six days a week. Postmen have a day off on Sunday.
Today, the word "mail" means both the institution of the post office (post office, branch), and the message, and the totality of the received correspondence.
In one minute, about 5 million letters pass through all the post offices of the world.
The oldest post office in the world began operating in 1712, it is located in the city of Sankier in Scotland.
Postal horns are symbols of postal communication in many countries, they are still depicted on a considerable number of mailboxes in the world, postage stamps and envelopes.
Until 1952, people in the UK were allowed to be sent in parcel post, and cattle can still be sent by post.
It is said that one of Chamberlain's political opponents, whom he refused to receive, "sent" himself by mail addressed to Chamberlain. The latter found a way out by refusing to receive this package. Another Englishman who decides to mail himself to Canada is refused on the sole ground that this rule only applies within England. And only in 1952 it was announced in the English Parliament that the post office was forced to cancel the paragraph on the transfer of people.
Once the UK postal service failed. Interestingly, as a result of it, a postcard sent on the eve of the Great Depression of 1929 did not reach the addressee from Wall Street until 2008, on the eve of the next global economic crisis.
The United States Postal Service is the largest employer in the world. Thanks to it, 870 thousand people have jobs. What is interesting: it is the American postal service that processes 46% of all available mail in the world.
At the beginning of the 20th century, it was possible to send children to the United States by mail, and this service cost 10 times cheaper than a train ticket. The child was “packed” in a special mail bag, stamped on his clothes, and the package was delivered to its destination. During the journey, the child was looked after by postal couriers
In the United States, a little more than a year (from 1860 to 1861) there was a Pony Express postal service. The main task of this postal company is the delivery of correspondence from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific. Horses were changed every 10-15 miles, therefore, the owners of Pony Express claimed that their couriers would cover 3,000 kilometers in no more than 10 days. As a result, the company suffered heavy losses. There are several reasons: the high cost of delivery, frequent attacks by bandits. And most importantly, the telegraph appeared in the United States, which is why Pony Express lost most of its customers.
Currently the right to use trademark PONY EXPRESS was acquired by a group of companies, the largest universal logistics operator in the CIS. The group of companies provides express delivery services, visa services, warehouse logistics, as well as a range of services as a 3PL operator.
Their last years The writer Victor Hugo lived in a mansion on a Parisian street, which during his lifetime was called Avenue Victor Hugo. As a return address on the letters, the writer simply indicated: "Monsieur Victor Hugo on his avenue in Paris."
London Post Offices annually receive hundreds of letters to Sherlock Holmes, sent to 221-b Baker Street. It is interesting that in reality such a house does not exist, therefore, all correspondence is sent to the museum of the great detective, located on the same street, but in house 239.
In the German city of Eutin there is an oak tree with its own postal address: A touching love story is connected with this oak tree: a girl who lived in Eutin in the 19th century exchanged messages with her beloved, leaving them in the hollow of this oak tree. The couple even got married under this tree. Since then, lonely people who wanted to find a couple began to bring their messages to the oak. Subsequently, the tree acquired the postal address Br?utigamseiche, Dodauer Forst, 23701 Eutin, and letters from all over the world are delivered by the postman. Anyone can read all the messages that are in the hollow, and answer them. It is said that thanks to this "dating service" over a hundred marriages have been concluded over the past years.
Until the 18th century, in England, the death penalty was due for the unauthorized opening of a bottle with a letter thrown ashore. This was allowed to be done only by special royal "openers". Such strictness is explained simply: the sailors of the British fleet in those days often sealed secret information in bottles, encrypted in a special way, and trusted them to the will of the sea currents.
A businessman from the city of Vernel (Utah) considered that the most cheap way delivery of building materials over long distances - through the mail. He sent 80,000 bricks in small packages to his city, a distance of 676 kilometers, to build a bank. Having completed the order, the postal department immediately set a daily limit of parcels per person at 91 kilograms.
On one of the islands of the Pacific state of Vanuatu, 50 meters from the coast, there is an underwater postal station. Having bought a special waterproof envelope in advance, divers can drop the letter in the mailbox, or give it to the postman on duty, sitting at the counter in diving equipment. Underwater mailboxes can also be found in Japan, Malaysia, the Bahamas and other resorts.
The first airlift of mail took place on February 18, 1911. The airplane transported more than six thousand letters and 250 postcards from the Indian city of Allahabad to neighboring Naini.
There was an experience of delivering mail by rockets. In 1959, a missile was launched from the US Navy submarine Barbero, on which a special mail container was placed instead of a warhead. In the 90s of the last century, similar launches were carried out from Russian submarines. True, this method of mail delivery is not widely used because of its high cost.
The logo for FedEx, a mail order service, has a disguised detail - an arrow between the letters E and X. Designer L. Leader, the creator of the logo, made this arrow so that customers subconsciously associate FedEx with movement and speed.
France has very liberal postage rules. So in 1997, the French Post went through a mousetrap. Since the address is written on the shipment, since it is paid properly, the post office did not present any claims against the sender. Just delivered the postal item to its destination.
In remote areas of the United States, you can stumble upon huge arrows cast in concrete. On average, their length is twenty-five meters. These signs served as a guide for airmail pilots in its early days in the 1920s, since there were no air charts then, and radio communication was not yet widespread. The arrows were painted bright yellow, towers with a searchlight were installed next to them.
The most valuable cargo delivered by mail was the usual parcel with the Cullinan diamond, found in 1905 in the Premier mine in South Africa, which the government of the then British colony decided to present to the English King George IV. For a diversion, the ship was equipped with a whole army of guards and a safe in the captain's cabin.
Since the middle of the 19th century, pneumatic mail has become widespread in many large cities in Europe and America. Post office stations were connected by underground pipes, in which capsules with letters were moved by means of compressed or rarefied air. Gradually, with the development of new technologies, pneumatic mail systems were closed. The last of these operated in Prague before the 2002 flood, although they are now rebuilding it.
When NASA was preparing to launch lunar missions, not a single insurance company undertook to insure the life of astronauts, since the risks were too great. To compensate the families of the astronauts for the expenses after the possible death of the latter, NASA issued special postcards, on which the crew members signed before the flight. If any of the astronauts died, their families could sell postcards to collectors at a good price, but all lunar flights from Apollo 11 to Apollo 16 ended up without casualties.
In 2015, on the eve of Valentine's Day, the national post office of the Netherlands undertook to deliver all postcards, which will be equipped with a lip print instead of the traditional postage stamp. To do this, automatic letter sorters were specially trained to correctly recognize such patterns.
The first regular pigeon postal service was organized in New Zealand.
By the way, the Rothschild dynasty got rich thanks to pigeon mail. Nathan Rothschild was the first to realize that the one who owns the information owns the world, and ... began to use the birds for his own good. Correspondence with important news and necessary data was brought to the banker by birds. And they did it many times faster than human couriers. So, for example, the news of the defeat of Napoleon's army at Waterloo reached the Rothschilds three days earlier than the British government.
Now carrier pigeons are rarely used to deliver letters, but they successfully cope with other tasks. For example, in remote areas of England and France, pigeons deliver blood samples to the hospital.
Interesting Facts about Russian Post
In Russia, the term "mail" was used only in relation to the so-called "German (foreign) mail". The internal postal system was called "yamskaya gonba", it is assumed that it got its name from the Tatar word "yam" - "road". In Russia, inns for messengers began to be called “pits”. Well, from the Tatar word "yam-chi" - "guide" - the name came from the position of "coachman". And initially, the caretakers of the “pits” were called “coachmen”, and then this word was transferred to the messengers themselves.
With the formation of a unified Postal Department in 1872, the word "coachman" gradually fell out of circulation. The people who delivered the mail were first called "postmen" (from the Polish "pocztarz"), and then "postmen" (from the Italian "postiglione").
In the old days, the messengers who delivered the mail sewed very important papers, or "deeds" under the lining of their caps or hats, so as not to attract the attention of robbers. This is where the expression "it's in the bag" comes from.
The first mailboxes for collecting letters appeared in Moscow and St. Petersburg in 1833, they were installed in small shops and pastry shops.
Mail was first sent by rail in 1837 - from St. Petersburg to Tsarskoye Selo. Then it began to be transported in specialized mail cars and in specially equipped cabins of ships.
In 1857, the first postage stamp was issued in Russia, and postcards were put into circulation in 1872.
In 1874, Russia became one of the founders of the Universal Postal Union.
At the beginning of the 20th century, aviation began to be actively used to deliver mail. At first, only official mail was delivered this way, and since 1922, paid forwarding of private ordinary and registered correspondence was introduced.
During the Great Patriotic War, the main task of the post office was to ensure uninterrupted communication between the front and the rear. By the way, at the same time, due to the lack of envelopes and postcards, the famous "soldier's triangle" was born. Up to 70 million letters were delivered monthly to the active army, and by all possible means - by planes, cars, steamers, motorcycles.
In the post-war years, the development of postal communications followed the path of mechanization and automation of the processes of processing mail, improving the organization of its transportation and delivery. Gradually, the post office increased the number of services: many post offices combined the telegraph and telephone, carried out the subscription and delivery of printed publications, began to accept payment for utility bills and issue pensions and benefits.
In Russia in the early 1990s, the postal service was singled out as an independent industry headed by the Federal Postal Administration, created under the Ministry of Communications Russian Federation. After several reorganizations in 2003, all existing organizations of the federal postal service were merged into a single federal postal operator - the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Russian Post, which has been included in the List of Strategic Enterprises of the Russian Federation since 2013.
In recent years, due to the rapid development of Internet communication, the share of postal items has been steadily declining. This applies primarily to personal correspondence. So, in Russia, 70% of all correspondence is business correspondence, and only 30% is personal.
The Russian artist Vladislav Koval, during his student youth, sent letters to his relatives, the stamps on the envelopes of which were not pasted, but drawn. Sending another letter, Vladislav drew a postage sign with his self-portrait. The inscription on the stamp read "Soviet graphic artist V. E. Koval - 1973". Not a single post office noticed the catch, and all the letters reached the addressees. By the way, this experience helped Koval to win the All-Union stamp design competition in the future.
In Veliky Ustyug, in the residence of Father Frost, there is a Father Frost Post Office.
There was even a post office on the Mir space station.
Interesting Facts About Postal Museums
There are postal museums in many countries.
One of the interesting ones is the Polish Post Office Museum in Gdansk, now a branch of the Gdansk Historical Museum. One of its rooms tells about the German attack on the post office on September 1, 1939, this operation of the Wehrmacht is considered the beginning of World War II.
The British Postal Museum has an album of stamps acquired by the Museum, owned by Freddie Mercury, who was known for his passion for philately.
In one of the museums in the German city of Wuppertal, there is a collection of several thousand postcards depicting the same landscape, but decorated with stamps from many countries. Each guest of the museum is given a clean postcard with a request to send it back after returning to their homeland.
Interesting facts about stamps and philately
The first postage stamp was issued on May 6, 1840 in Great Britain, it was called "Penny Black". The stamps were invented by an English teacher, inventor and postal reformer in the UK, Sir Rowland Hill, who is called "Mr. Postman" in England.
William Shakespeare was the first person of "non-royal" blood to appear on a British stamp.
Collecting and studying postage stamps (including postage stamps) and other philatelic materials is called philately.
The rarest stamps in the world are the black British Guiana of 1 cent, issued in 1856, the yellow Sweden of 3 skillings of 1855 (a color error was found in this stamp) and the Gold Coast, presumably 1885 with the seals of the postmasters of the cities of Boscowen ( New Hampshire) and Lockport (New York).
The largest collection is considered to be the collection of the British Museum, collected by Tapling MP and bequeathed by him in 1891 to the Museum; it cost 800,000 German marks.
The first philatelic society was organized in England in 1866.
The first magazine dedicated to postage stamps appeared in 1862 in Liverpool under the title The Stamp-Collector`s Review and Monthly Advertiser, which was published until 1864. A little earlier, catalogs and special albums began to be published for the placement and storage of philatelic collections.
Since 2002, the US Postal Service Museum has presented the Smithsonian Philatelic Achievement Award every two years.
Interesting facts about mailboxes
The first mailboxes, they were called tamburi, appeared 400 years ago in Florence. They served to collect anonymous denunciations of people who were suspected of "connection with the devil." Half of the coin was supposed to be attached to the anonymous letter. If the information was confirmed, the author of the message received a reward by presenting a kind of "password" - the second half of the coin.
The first mailbox for collecting correspondence appeared in England on November 23, 1852. It was made of cast iron and was distinguished by a pleasant, according to some sources, dark chestnut color.
The oldest operating post box in the world is located in St. Peter Port on the island of Guernsey, UK. He began work on February 8, 1853.
The very first and unusual mailbox is considered to be a simple shoe of the expedition of Bartolomeo Diaz.
In the 18th century, the captains of ships sailing from England to America used canvas bags to collect correspondence, which were hung in the lobbies of hotels and in coffee houses to collect letters.
The last major improvement to the mailbox was made in 1896 in Sweden. A design was invented there, when a bag frame was inserted into the guides of the bottom of the box, after which the movable bottom was pulled out, and the letters instantly fell into the bag. This system is used in most mailboxes to this day.
Post boxes for collecting ordinary letters in our country appeared in 1848 in two largest cities - St. Petersburg and Moscow. The first boxes were made of cast iron and weighed about three pounds so that they would not be stolen.
The expression "mailbox" in the USSR meant not only a container for collecting correspondence, but also a secret enterprise that did not indicate a regular address, but only a mailbox number.
In 2012, the UK decided to paint mailboxes at the birthplaces of Britons who won gold at the London Olympics in "golden" color.
The History of Letters: Interesting Facts THE FLOWING OF THE EPISTOLAR GENRE For many centuries, letters remained the only connection between people at a distance. People trusted a piece of paper with their innermost feelings and thoughts. It was the correspondence that became an inexhaustible storehouse of information for historians. A good style and style were highly valued in those days. Not without reason, many initially wrote a draft letter, and only then rewrote it cleanly - without blots and with edits. N.I. Grech “Educational book of Russian literature”: “Letters in the exact meaning of the word, the essence of conversations or conversations with those who are absent. They take the place of oral conversation, but contain the speeches of only one person. When composing letters, one should follow the rule: write as you would speak in this case, but speak correctly, coherently and pleasantly. It is not surprising that in the literature of the 17th-19th centuries the epistolary genre was used with might and main, when the plot of a novel was based solely on the correspondence of characters or a character. Jean Honore Fragonard "Love Letter" This includes the famous novel by Charles de Laclos "Dangerous Liaisons" (1782), built on the correspondence of two inveterate intriguers, debauchees and cynics - de Valmont and Madame de Merteuil. By the way, in the preface, the writer tries to convince the reader that the letters are genuine, and he only edited them. J. W. Goethe did not claim the authenticity of his "Sufferings of Young Werther". However, this romance, in letters about the tragic love of a hero who ends up committing suicide, had very real consequences. Wanting to imitate the romantic hero, quite a few young readers of Werther began to ... voluntarily part with their lives. The first novel by F. Dostoevsky, Poor People (1845), was also written in the epistolary genre. Indeed, what better than correspondence can depict the psychological nuances of the characters that Fyodor Mikhailovich loved to explore so much ... A. S. Pushkin "The novel in letters": as often as possible and as much as possible - you cannot imagine what it means to wait for a postal day in the country. The expectation of a ball cannot be compared with it. LETTERS FROM A TEMPLATE For those who lacked their own thoughts and style, special "letters" were issued - books with samples of a wide variety of written messages - from requests and complaints to superiors to love explanations and congratulations. Here are just some of the particularly amusing types of letters mentioned in the Letters: "Letters of exhortation", "Letters of command", "Letters containing simple courtesy", "Letters in which the search for friendship or affection", "Letters when necessary write to someone for the first time" and even "Letters are witty". .. However, the current postcards with congratulations already printed look even worse, and have always seemed to me in bad taste. Jan Vermeer "Lady in Blue Reading a Letter" LETTERS ARE NOT ONLY A VALUABLE TEXT... Sometimes words seemed not enough, and to enhance the emotional effect, the letters were decorated with monograms, sealed with kisses, smothered with perfumes, and written on paper of different colors. In England at the end of the 19th century, there was even such a funny fashionable belief: on a certain day of the week, letters were written on paper of a certain color. So the color of the sea wave was fixed for Monday, pale pink for Tuesday, gray for Wednesday, light blue for Thursday, silver for Friday, yellow for Saturday, and only on Sunday they wrote on traditional white paper. "BLACK OFFICE" "I don't like it when people read letters, looking over my shoulder..." Vladimir Vysotsky once sang. But no matter how the senders sealed their letters, there were always those who wanted to violate the secrecy of correspondence. First of all, this, of course, concerned the rulers who wanted to figure out - but is anyone writing something seditious? Richelieu, Napoleon, and even Alexander the Great sinned in the same way. They say that the latter specifically forced his soldiers to write letters home in order to read them later and determine the mood and degree of loyalty of their subordinates. As for Napoleon, he went further - he created a whole correspondence control department, which was called the "black office". The emperor made a certain Nogeler a postmaster general - solely for his talent to discreetly print other people's letters. Here we can recall an incident from the life of Anna Akhmatova. When one foreign letter went to the Soviet poetess for two whole months, someone joked that it must have been on foot. To which Akhmatova immediately added: "And it is still unknown with whom on hand." ALONG AND AVERAGE The cost of mailing a letter depended on its weight. Therefore, in the old days (until the end of the 19th century), many people tried to save on the amount of paper. Having written the sheet to the end, they turned it 90 degrees and continued to write - perpendicular to the already existing text. The more frugal managed to add text at a 45-degree angle, while the more resourceful used a different ink at each turn to make the lines legible. Far and wide It was this bad habit that the author of "Alice in Wonderland" and a fan of the epistolary genre, Lewis Carroll, condemned. In his treatise Eight or Nine Wise Words on How to Write Letters, he wrote: ..if you have written the whole sheet of paper to the end and you have something else to say, take another sheet, whole, or a piece - as needed, but do not write across what has already been written! ADDRESSES Do you remember the textbook boy Vanka Zhukov from A. Chekhov's story, who ingenuously wrote the address "To the village to grandfather" on the envelope of the letter? T. Gaponenko Illustration for A. Chekhov's story Vanka So in the old days, strange addresses were far from a literary invention. Before the advent of house numbering, postmen (and senders) had a hard time. In order for the letter to get into the right hands, the address had to be indicated with all the details - such and such a floor, a turn to the right, etc. N. Gogol "Inspector": “K o r o b k i n (reads the address). His honor, gracious sovereign, Ivan Vasilyevich Tryapichkin, in St. Petersburg, in Pochtamskaya street, in the house at number ninety-seven, turns into the courtyard, on the third floor to the right. Well, not an address, but some kind of "reprimant"! There were even worse addresses. For example, "Deliver to the street where the wing of the church opens at the end of Lombard Street." Or “Give the letter in Moscow in the Novgorod Compound of the Safe house to the lawyer Bogdan Neyolov, and welcome to give it to him without detaining and beyond the reach of Fedot Tikhanovich.” WHY WRITE LETTERS TODAY I understand perfectly well that progress cannot be stopped. Phones, email and social networks paper letters have long been supplanted from mass use. It would seem, what difference does it make - is the letter typed on a computer or written on a sheet? But email still loses that elusive sense of authenticity and warmth that handwriting has. Indeed, even in the old days, typing personal letters on a typewriter was considered indecent. A. Laktionov Letter from the front In addition, before the advent of Email Letters did not arrive immediately. Therefore, they wrote them more thoughtfully and in detail, learned to at least somehow express their thoughts, and, therefore, to streamline these thoughts in their heads. According to the old correspondence, it was easy to restore many events and even feel the spirit of the times. However, emails could be an acceptable substitute if more convenient conversational methods of communication did not appear - like a mobile phone and Skype, where you can easily talk about nothing. Nevertheless, a paper letter still has an indisputable argument - its material essence. Especially important messages are still considered authentic if they have an ink signature or a wet seal.
Letters remained for many centuries the only link between people at a distance. People trusted a piece of paper with their innermost feelings and thoughts. Exactly correspondence became inexhaustible treasure trove of information for historians.
A good style and style were highly valued in those days. Not without reason, many initially wrote a draft letter, and only then rewrote it cleanly - without blots and with edits.
N.I. Grech "Educational book of Russian literature":
« Letters in the exact sense of the word, are conversations or conversations with those who are absent. They take the place of oral conversation, but contain the speeches of only one person. When composing letters, one should follow the rule: write as you would speak in this case, but speak correctly, coherently and pleasantly.
It is not surprising that in the literature of the 17th-19th centuries epistolary genre, when the plot of a novel was built solely on the correspondence of characters or a character.
This includes the famous novel by Ch. de Laclos "Dangerous Liaisons" (1782), built on the correspondence of two inveterate intriguers, debauchees and cynics - de Valmont and Madame de Merteuil. By the way, in the preface, the writer tries to convince the reader that the letters are genuine, and he only edited them.
J. W. Goethe did not claim the authenticity of his "Sufferings of Young Werther". However, this romance, in letters about the tragic love of a hero who ends up committing suicide, had very real consequences. Wanting to imitate the romantic hero, quite a few young readers of Werther began to ... voluntarily part with their lives.
AT epistolary genre F. Dostoevsky's first novel, "Poor People" (1845), was also written. Indeed, what better than correspondence can depict the psychological nuances of the characters that Fyodor Mikhailovich loved to explore so much ...
A. S. Pushkin "A novel in letters":
"Liz a - S ashe
... Write to me as often as possible and as much as possible - you cannot imagine what it means to wait for the mail day in the countryside. The anticipation of the ball cannot be compared with it."
LETTERS BY TEMPLATE
For those who lacked their own thoughts and style, special "letters" were issued - books with samples of a variety of written messages- from requests and complaints to the authorities to love explanations and congratulations. Here are just some of the particularly amusing types of letters mentioned in the Letters: "Letters of exhortation", "Letters of command", "Letters containing simple courtesy", "Letters in which the search for friendship or affection", "Letters when necessary write to someone for the first time" and even "Witty Letters"...
However, the current postcards with congratulations already printed look even worse, and always seemed to me in bad taste.
LETTERS ARE NOT ONLY A VALUABLE TEXT...
Sometimes words seemed not enough to strengthen emotional effect of writing decorated with monograms, sealed with kisses, perfumed, written on paper of different colors.
In England at the end of the 19th century there was even such a funny fashionable belief: on a certain day of the week letters written on paper of a certain color. So the color of the sea wave was fixed for Monday, pale pink for Tuesday, gray for Wednesday, light blue for Thursday, silver for Friday, yellow for Saturday, and only on Sunday they wrote on traditional white paper.
"BLACK OFFICE"
"I don't like it when they read letters, looking over my shoulder ... "- Vladimir Vysotsky once sang.
But no matter how the senders sealed their letters, there were always those who wanted to violate the secrecy of correspondence. First of all, this, of course, concerned the rulers who wanted to figure out - but is anyone writing something seditious?
Richelieu, Napoleon, and even Alexander the Great sinned in the same way. They say that the latter specifically forced his soldiers to write letters home in order to read them later and determine the mood and degree of loyalty of their subordinates.
As for Napoleon, he went further - he created a whole correspondence control department, which was called the "black office". The emperor made a certain Nogeler a postmaster general - solely for his talent to discreetly print other people's letters.
Here we can recall an incident from the life of Anna Akhmatova. When one foreign letter went to the Soviet poetess for two whole months, someone joked that it must have been on foot. To which Akhmatova immediately added: "And it is still unknown with whom on hand."
ALONG AND ALONG
Price mail forwarding letters depended on its weight. Therefore, in the old days (until the end of the 19th century), many people tried to save on the amount of paper. Having written the sheet to the end, they turned it 90 degrees and continued to write - perpendicular to the already existing text. The more frugal managed to add text at a 45-degree angle, while the more resourceful used a different ink at each turn to make the lines legible.
It was this bad habit that the author of Alice in Wonderland and a fan of the epistolary genre, Lewis Carroll, condemned. In his treatise Eight or Nine Wise Words on How to Write Letters, he wrote: “... if you have written the entire sheet of paper to the end and you have something else to say, take another sheet, whole, or a piece - as needed, but do not write across what has already been written!”.
ADDRESSES
Do you remember the textbook boy Vanka Zhukov from the story of A. Chekhov, who ingenuously wrote the address "To the village to grandfather" on the envelope of the letter?
So in the old days, strange addresses were far from literary fiction. Before the advent of house numbering, postmen (and senders) had a hard time. In order for the letter to get into the right hands, the address had to be indicated with all the details - such and such a floor, a turn to the right, etc.
N. Gogol "Inspector":
“K o r o b k i n (reads the address). His honor, gracious sovereign, Ivan Vasilyevich Tryapichkin, in St. Petersburg, in Pochtamskaya street, in the house at number ninety-seven, turns into the courtyard, on the third floor to the right. Well, not an address, but some kind of "reprimant"!
There were even worse addresses. For example, "Deliver to the street where the wing of the church opens at the end of Lombard Street". Or “Give the letter to the lawyer Bogdan Neyolov in Moscow at the Novgorod Compound of the Safesky House, and welcome to give it to him without detaining and beyond the hands of Fedot Tikhanovich”.
WHY WRITE LETTERS TODAY
I understand perfectly well that progress cannot be stopped. phones, Email and social networks have long supplanted paper letters from mass use.
It would seem, what difference does it make - is the letter typed on a computer or written on a sheet? But email still loses that elusive sense of authenticity and warmth that handwritten has. Indeed, even in the old days, typing personal letters on a typewriter was considered indecent.
In addition, before the advent Email Letters did not arrive immediately. Therefore, they wrote them more thoughtfully and in detail, learned to at least somehow express their thoughts, and, therefore, to streamline these thoughts in their heads. According to the old correspondence, it was easy to restore many events and even feel the spirit of the times. However, and emails could be an acceptable replacement, if more convenient conversational methods of communication did not appear - like a mobile phone and Skype, where you can easily chat about anything.
Nevertheless, a paper letter still has an indisputable argument - its material essence. Especially important messages are still considered authentic if they have an ink signature or a wet seal.
Incredible Facts
Of course, most of the letters were personal, so it is not surprising that they open us when we look into them.
10. Letter from Fidel Castro to US President Franklin Roosevelt
Fidel Castro "survived" US rule by ten presidents, most of whom wanted to end him. Some even tried. However, Castro's first contact with the US president was very peaceful.
In 1940, a young student at the Dolores School in Santiago, Cuba, wrote to President Franklin Roosevelt. A 12-year-old boy began his letter like this: "My good friend Roosevelt."
He then greeted the President and told him that he was delighted to hear on the radio that Roosevelt had been re-elected. The child also asked for a $10 bill because he had never seen it.
Castro wrote that despite his poor English, he is very intelligent. As Fidel put it, "I'm a boy, but I think a lot." The letter arrived at the State Department on November 27, 1940, but Roosevelt never saw it. Franklin died never knowing who Fidel Castro was.
9. Letter from Queen Elizabeth II to US President Eisenhower
In 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower became the first US President to entertain the Queen of England. The Queen enjoyed her stay and decided to reciprocate by inviting the President and his wife to Balmoral, Scotland, two years later.
During the visit, it seemed that the president could not recover from the unsurpassed taste of royal cakes. Five months after the visit, the queen wrote him a letter in which she told him about her own recipe for making these cakes.
The Queen was inspired to write the letter, sent on January 24, 1960, by a photo of the president at a barbecue she saw in the newspaper. The recipe also had helpful information on how to prepare a meal to feed 16 people.
The queen noted that when there are less than 16 people at the table, the amount of flour and milk should be reduced when making cakes. She ended the letter with a remark about how much she and her family enjoyed spending time in the company of the president and his wife.
8. Letter from Hitler on vacation
On March 1, 1932, Adolf Hitler wrote a letter to the state of Brunswick asking for a leave of absence and also to be allowed to campaign in the forthcoming Reich Presidential elections.
The letter was written 4 days after he officially became a German citizen. Initially, Hitler was an Austrian citizen, and became a German citizen after he was hired by the state.
Hitler lost the election to incumbent President Paul von Hindenburg. However, a year later, Hindenburg appointed Hitler Chancellor.
There are many mistakes in the letter. The main content of the letter is Hitler's request for a "vacation" until the next election of the President of the Reich. The letter was discovered only a few years ago and was expected to be auctioned for more than £5,000.
7. Letter from Albert Einstein to American President Franklin Roosevelt
Albert Einstein's letter to Roosevelt in 1939 is said to be one of the most significant letters recent history. In the letter, Albert warned the President that the Germans can create the strongest weapon.
Einstein himself later said that this letter was one of the biggest mistakes of his life. Some historians believe that the letter was written by Leo Szilard, and Einstein only signed it.
Little is known about the other three letters sent by Albert Roosevelt. While the first two letters were of a consultative nature and made certain suggestions, the last letter was a request for a favor.
The last letter was not delivered to the President until after his death. It may also have been written by Szilard, and it says what exactly Szilard was the first to develop the concept of nuclear weapons.
The letter included a request for a personal meeting between Szilard and his fellow scientists with the president to discuss the matter.
Hitler's letters
6. Letter from Gandhi to Adolf Hitler
In 1939-1940, Mahatma Gandhi wrote two letters to Adolf Hitler. The more popular of the two letters, "Dear Friend", was written in July 1939. Gandhi wrote at the time that World War II can only be prevented by Adolf Hitler.
He asked the Fuhrer to follow his example of non-violence, and told how much he managed to achieve using this method. The famous Indian philosopher ended the letter by apologizing to Hitler in case it caused him any discomfort.
The second letter, however, began with a reminder that referring to Hitler as "friend" was a mere formality. In this letter, written after December 1940, Gandhi compared Hitler's Nazism to the British imperialism that India was trying to counter.
He also warned Hitler that the world of another force will allow him to improve his methods and defeat the enemy with his own weapons.
In conclusion, Gandhi noted that everything he said also applies to Mussolini.
5. Finding a job by Leonardo da Vinci
Long before Leonardo da Vinci became famous for his paintings, he was an ordinary Italian with a certain skill set. In 1482, at the age of 30, a relatively unknown da Vinci was looking for work.
He wrote directly to the Duke of Milan to find him a job.. Da Vinci listed his skills in a long letter, stating what he could do weapons for ships, armored wagons, catapults.
Leonardo also noted that he could teach the duke several very effective methods attack and defend yourself. Among other things, to show himself not only as a person interested in the war, he added that knows how to build bridges and buildings, make sculptures from clay, bronze and marble.
Da Vinci ended the letter by asking the duke to take him in for a test if he had any doubts about Leonardo's specific skills.
Historical letters
4. Letter from Malcolm X to Martin Luther King Jr.
Despite the fact that Malcolm X and Martin Luther King fought for the same idea, they could hardly be called friends. While Martin used non-violent methods in his struggle, Malcolm decided to go the opposite way.
The boiling point between them happened when Malcolm X allegedly named King "Reverend Doctor Chicken Wing". X sent two letters to King, in 1963 and 1964.
Malcolm X
The first letter was X's request for King's presence and support in an open rally. Malcolm emphasized that if the President John Kennedy, capitalist, and the Russian leader Khrushchev, communist, could find something in common, then maybe they can.
X also suggested to King that if the latter could not come himself, then he had the right to send his representative.
Martin Luther King
In a second letter dated June 30, 1964, it was "hard offer". In this letter, he informed King of the plight of the people of St. Augustine. He threatened that if the government did not intervene soon, he would be forced to send some of his brothers from the Kuklusklan to "use their own medicines".
3. Letter from Oscar Wilde "De Profundis"
Tensions between the Marquess of Queensberry and his son Lord Alfred Douglas stem from the latter's association with Oscar Wilde, who subsequently spent two years in prison after being found guilty of gross seduction.
While in prison, Oscar wrote a letter to Douglas. The letter was published as an essay entitled "De Profundis" ("From the Depths"). It was a reflection of Douglas' betrayal and Wilde's regret.
Wilde wrote that he felt abandoned after Douglas went public with personal letters and poems that Oscar had written for him. The writer also said that Douglas pushed him into doom, using his weakness.
Collecting stamps and collecting postcards are among the three most popular hobbies around the world.
The oldest post office in the world is located in Scotland, in the city of Sankier. It received its first visitors back in 1712.
The oldest active mailbox in the world is located in the UK, on the island of Guernsey. He has been accepting letters since February 8, 1853.
Wall box built into the wall. Castletown, Isle of Man
Interesting fact: first mailboxes used 4 centuries ago by the Inquisition of Florence. True, not simple letters were thrown there, but denunciations of people suspected of "conspiracy with the devil."
Once the UK postal service failed. Interestingly, as a result postcard sent on the eve of the Great Depression of 1929, reached its destination from Wall Street only in 2008, on the eve of the Great Recession - the next global economic crisis.
The longest letter sent by an individual to an individual is 1,402,344 words. Its author Englishman Elan Foreman, worked for over 2 years to express his love to his wife Janet. Interestingly, the largest number of letters was also written by a loving husband to his wife. Wichi Noda, a senior government official from Japan, sent his wife 1,307 letters from business trips. When these letters were published, they took up 25 volumes with a total volume of over 12,000 pages.
In the world there are a huge number interesting postal bans. For example, the Swiss are forbidden to send horoscopes by mail, the British are forbidden to send garbage parcels, and the inhabitants of some Central African countries are not allowed to send shaving brushes, and only released in Japan!
Before 1952 in the UK it was allowed to send people in postal parcels, and cattle can be sent by mail even now.
London post offices receive hundreds of letters to Sherlock Holmes, sent to 221-b Baker Street. It is interesting that in reality such a house does not exist, therefore, all correspondence is sent to the museum of the great detective, located on the same street, but in house 239.
Until the 18th century, in England, the death penalty was due for the unauthorized discovery of a beached letter bottles. This was allowed to be done only by special royal "openers". Such strictness is explained simply: the sailors of the British fleet in those days often sealed secret information in bottles, encrypted in a special way, and trusted them to the will of the sea currents.
And another interesting fact about royal mail: British stamps do not show the country of origin. All other countries of the world always sign their stamps in Latin script, and Great Britain, which produced the first stamps, has the privilege of doing without a signature.
In the FedEx logo, mail delivery services, there is a disguised detail - an arrow between the letters E and X. Designer L. Leader, the creator of the logo, made this arrow so that customers subconsciously associate FedEx with movement and speed.
Russian artist Vladislav Koval(pictured) during his student youth he sent letters to his relatives, the stamps on the envelopes of which were not glued, but drawn. Interestingly, not a single post office noticed the catch, and all letters reached the addressees. By the way, the experience of such petty fraud helped Koval to win the All-Union stamp design competition in the future.
Interestingly, there was even a post office on the Mir space station.
Sometimes rockets were used to deliver mail. In 1959, a missile was launched from the US Navy submarine Barbero, on which a special mail container was placed instead of a warhead. In the 90s of the last century, similar launches were carried out from Russian submarines. True, this method of mail delivery is not widely used because of its high cost.