Penny Black, the first postage stamp
For the first time, the sender pays for a letter in advance
Until 1840 British letters were paid for by the recipient, by distance and number of sheets. Rowland Hill’s reform brought a flat penny rate and a stamp with the young Victoria’s profile.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Did you know
Before stamps, the recipient paid for a letter, so people cheated. Rowland Hill told of a girl who glanced at an envelope from her fiancé and refused it: the news was coded on the outside. The stamp arrived in 1840. Share →
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — 13 years later
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — 21 years later
- 1864 End of the Caucasian War and the Circassian expulsion — 24 years later
Middle East
- 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay — 12 years earlier
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — 1 year earlier
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — 1 year earlier
Africa
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Asia
- 1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora — 25 years earlier
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — 9 years earlier
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — 1 year earlier
- 1850–1864 Taiping Rebellion — 10 years later
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — 13 years later
Americas
- 1822 Independence of Brazil — 18 years earlier
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — 5 years earlier
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — 2 years earlier
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Oceania
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — 11 years later
Alive at the time
- Charles Darwin (aged 31)
- Abraham Lincoln (aged 31)
- Karl Marx (aged 22)
- Queen Victoria (aged 21)
- Fyodor Dostoevsky (aged 19)
- Leo Tolstoy (aged 12)
- Dmitri Mendeleev (aged 6)
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (aged 0)
- Katsushika Hokusai (aged 80)
- Andrew Jackson (aged 73)