Very few stamps were issued during first years of World War II and most that were issued related directly to the war and the war effort. But one of the handful that were issued was today’s #stampoftheday, a 3-cent stamp issued on October 31, 1944 honoring the 50th anniversary of motion pictures. (The event commemorated […]
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In 1993, when it grappled with fundamental questions the state’s educational finance system, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court used language from the state’s more than 200-year old constitution as the basis for a groundbreaking decision that forced the state to give much more aid to its poorest cities and towns. That clause was written by
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Is the man driving the truck in today’s #stampoftheday a “doodah man” who told people “you’ve got to play your hand?” Or is he up in Buffalo thinking he’s “got to mellow slow?” Or is he just “a goin’ home back where [he] belongs?” Quite likely it’s none of those things since these lyrics from
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In August 21, 1945, my father, along with almost 15,000 other soldiers, was on the Queen Mary, which was one of the first ships to bring soldiers back from Europe at the end of World War II. As the ship approached New York Harbor, the soldiers saw a familiar and welcome sight—the Statue of Liberty.
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A bear so famous that he needed his own Zip Code to handle all his fan mail lurks behind the scenes of today’ #stampoftheday, a 4-cent stamp honoring Forest Conservation that was issued on October 26, 1958. It was released in conjunction with the American Forestry Association’s annual meeting. It also marked the 100th anniversary
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Today’s #stampoftheday honors a “champion of liberty,” who, among others things, was a Russian military officer who loved Tsar Nicholas II, a spy who met the 13th Dalai Lama, the commander of the “White Guard” in Finland’s civil war, a statesman who got the US and Great Britain to recognize Finnish independence, the leader of
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On this brisk late fall day, I have been sitting on my patio warmed (slightly) by an outdoor heater, looking at the remaining leaves on the trees and ruminating on what I was certain was slim pickings for today’s #stampoftheday. But, as it turns out, I was wrong and the stamps led me on unexpectedly
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Because today is the 75th anniversary of the day that the United Nations officially came into being, it’s a good time to reflect on what the UN stood for when it was founded, what it stands for today, and what it, broadly defined, might be in the future. The UN’s first 10 stamps, which were
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Although my parents always voted (almost always, I think, for Democrats), they weren’t political. They didn’t work on campaigns, go to rallies or become involved in the civil rights or anti-war movements. And, with one exception, I never heard them speak highly of any national politician. The exception was Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic nominee for
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When I started preparing this post, I thought that today’s stamp was an innocuous offering that I had to include to continue my 185-day long streak of writing a daily #stampoftheday ” piece. It’s easy to see why I thought so little of this 7-cent airmail stamp, which was issued on October 22, 1960. The
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