World Post Day marked
THE TRNC marked World Post Day last Friday. In a statement Post Offıce manager Hasan Şentürk said: “Beginning with smoke signals, [human] communication evolved into pigeon posts, couriers, letters and electronic mails.
“Through globalisation, postal services have had to adapt by providing [other] services and innovative ideas, besides delivering letters.”
Mr Şentürk paid tribute to “all colleagues who have died of Covid-19 throughout the world” and thanked “all members of the Turkey’s Post and Telegraph Organisation” for their “continuous support, assistance and cooperation”.
According to the United Nations, World Post Day is celebrated each year on October 9, the anniversary of the establishment of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) in 1874 in the Swiss capital, Bern.
It was declared World Post Day by the UPU Congress held in Tokyo, Japan, in 1969.
“Since then, countries across the world participate annually in the celebrations,” a UN statement said.
“Post offices in many countries use the event to introduce or promote new postal products and services.
“As Covid-19 spreads like wildfire around the world, postal operators are introducing new and creative ways to keep the post moving.
“Posts have stepped in to offer everything from delivering critical personal protective equipment, testing kits and medications, to ensuring children receive their educational materials to continue their schooling from home.”
The world’s first known postal document, found in Egpyt, dates from 255 BC, but “even before that time postal services existed on nearly every continent in the form of messengers serving kings and emperors”.
The Penny Black was the world’s first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system. It was first issued in Great Britain in May 1840.