1st September : World letter writing Day

In the late 1990s, Richard Simpkin, an Australian author, artist, and photographer wrote letters to those he considered to be Australian legends. He became excited when these legends responded to him by letter.  In 2005, he penned down his experience of writing letters in the book 'Australian Legends'.  In 2014, he founded World Letter Writing Day.

In this fast electronic world, the habit of writing is slowly vanishing.  One's handwriting reflects their state of mind, education, person's character, and more.  Handwritten letters give emotional bonding between people.  There is even one branch of science that deals with handwriting called graphology.  Graphology is the study of personality through one's handwriting. 

Here are a few interesting anecdotes about the power of 'letter writing': 

An 11-year-old girl named Grace Bedell wrote a letter to Lincoln stating that his face is  “so thin,” and would benefit from a beard.  Lincoln had taken her advice to heart and did grow a beard perhaps the most famous one in American history.

India's first Prime Minister, Nehru's letter to his 10-year-old daughter Indira Gandhi, who later became India's first woman Prime Minister not only shows the bonding between them,  But it helped him to teach her about human history and the history of India while he was away on business.  It was published as a book called "Letters from a Father to his Daughter".   Even when we are away, the letters shorten the distance.

The below stamp was issued by Thailand Post in the year 1969

The below stamp was issued by Japan Post in the year 1993

30th August : International Whale Shark Day

International Whale Shark Day

Whale Shark?  We know Whales. They are mammals like humans.  They give birth to young ones and feed them milk. We Know Sharks, they are fish, they lay eggs.  Whales produce sound to communicate, whereas sharks don't have that skill. What is Whale Shark? A whale shark is a shark.  It is the biggest living species of shark on our planet.  

Despite the fact that they are so big, their teeth are very small, and they move slowly in the ocean at 5 km per hour. Despite the fact that they can dive up to 1,000 meters, they prefer to roam seas that have around a 50-meter depth.  For this reason, they can be hunted easily. The skin pattern of each whale shark is unique, just like the fingerprint of humans.

We are losing this unique animal because of overhunting for its meat, skin, and bone, colliding with boats, getting trapped in fishing nets, and consuming plastics thrown at sea.

In 2008, during the International Whale Shark Conference held in Isla Holbox,  over 40 whale experts and ocean activists declared August  30th as International Whale Day. In 2012, it got its momentum and since then it is celebrated all around the world.

Below Rhincodon_typus (whale shark) stamp was issued by India Post in 2009.

First Supersonic Flight

On October 14, 1947, Air Force brigadier general Charles Elwood Yeager set a world record on Bell Aircraft Company's Bell X-1. “Chuck” Yeager became the first pilot to break the sound barrier. Flying the rocket-powered Bell X-1, he achieved Mach 1.06 (Mach is the ratio of the speed of a body to the speed of sound in the surrounding medium).

Fifty years later the USPS commemorated that event with a 32-cent postage stamp honoring the first supersonic flight.

While coming to stamp issuing policy, many countries, includeing India, USA, the living persons can not appear on a stamp. So, neither Yeager’s name nor his image is part of the stamp design. This was not the first time in USA, that an airplane on a stamp appeared as if no pilot was on board. After Charles Lindbergh flew solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927,  USPS issued an airmail stamp depicting the Spirit of St. Louis with no mention or image of Lindbergh.

But Yeager’s wife, Glennis Faye Dickhouse is half lucky as she has her name on the stamp. Yeager had named the Bell X-1 “Glamorous Glennis” in her honor. But because of the error in this stamp design, the plane's name near the nose is misspelled "Glenna" instead of "Glennis".

I am lucky to get this 1997, First super sonic stamps on cover.

The first supersonic transport (SST) was the Soviet Tupolev Tu-144, which had its first supersonic flight in June 1969 and began flying mail between Moscow and Alma-Ata (Almaty) in 1975.

The first supersonic passenger-carrying commercial airplane, the Concorde, was built jointly by aircraft manufacturers in Great Britain and France. It made its first transatlantic crossing on September 26, 1973, and entered regular service in 1976. British Airways and Air France stopped flying the Concorde in 2003.

The Concorde had a maximum cruising speed of 2,179 km (1,354 miles) per hour, or Mach 2.04.

Balloon Mail

 Balloon Mail

Homing pigeons had long been used to send messages (an activity known as pigeon mail),  the first mail to be carried by an air vehicle was on 7 January 1785, on a hot air balloon flight from Dover to France near Calais. It was flown by Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries.  The letter was written by an American Loyalist William Franklin to his son William Temple Franklin who was serving in a diplomatic role in Paris with his grandfather Benjamin Franklin.   

During the first aerial flight in North America by balloon on 9 January 1793, from Philadelphia to Deptford, New Jersey, Jean-Pierre Blanchard carried a personal letter from George Washington to be delivered to the owner of whatever property Blanchard happened to land on, making the flight the first delivery of air mail in the United States.  

The first official air mail delivery in the United States took place on 17 August 1859, when John Wise piloted a balloon starting in Lafayette,  Indiana, with a destination of New York. Weather issues forced him to land near Crawfordsville, Indiana, and the mail reached its final destination via train.  

In 1959, the U.S. Postal Service issued a 7-cent stamp commemorating the event. 

Balloons also carried mail out of Paris and Metz during the Franco-Prussian War (1870),  drifting over the heads of the Germans besieging those cities. Balloon mail was also carried on an 1877 flight in Nashville, Tennessee.

Ivan Sarić - Aviation pioneer

 Ivan Sarić - Aviation pioneer

Ivan Sarić (27 June 1876 – 23 August 1966) was a Yugoslavian sportsman and aviator. He was one of the most important pioneers of aviation in Eastern Europe. 

He is a successful cyclist and a football player.  He won several awards in cycling competitions. while visiting Paris in 1909, Sarić met some of the French flight pioneers,  including Louis Blériot.  He saw his planes and instantly became fascinated with the prospect of flying. Upon his return to Subotica, he immediately started building his own aircraft. His first construction was made entirely from materials he had like wood, linens, motorcycle wheels, and even piano strings.

In early 1910, he completed his one-winged Sarić 1 aircraft by incorporating the 24-horsepower Delphos engine.  On 16th October 1910, in front of 7,000 of his fellow citizens, Sarić took to air successfully.  In 1911, he constructed a more improved plane with 50-horsepower. He tried to build helicopters. World war 1, slowed his experiments, but till his end, he continued his inventions and constructions.

The below stamp was issued by Serbian Post on 9th December 2010 on account of the 100th anniversary of aviation in Serbia.