While it might seem odd today, today's #stampoftheday was first in a series that honored 10 foreign "champions of liberty"-people who both fought for democratic rights and generally opposed the spread of Russian influence. The stamp in question is an 8-cent airmail stamp, issued on August 31, 1957, that honored Ramon Magsaysay, who was president …
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On September 1, 1939, 1.5 million German soldiers and more than 2,500 tanks invaded Poland, while more than 2,000 German airplanes began bombing Polish cities, air bases, fortifications, bridges, and railroad lines. Two days later, Great Britain and France, which a year earlier had acquiesced to the German takeover of Czechoslovakia, declared war on Germany. To …
John Tyler, who by actively supported the Confederacy became the first—and perhaps the only—president to commit a public act of treason against the U.S. government, emerges from his well-deserved obscurity as the subject of today's #stampoftheday. A 10-cent stamp issued on September 2, 1938, the stamp was a part of the "Prexies," - a series …
The diminished importance of the American labor movement, the declining economic fortunes of working-class white Americans, and the ominous rise of violent ethnic nationalism can all be found in today's #stampoftheday, a 3-cent stamp marking Labor Day issued on September 3, 1956. Like most of the stamps from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s that I've been …
Are you old enough to remember paperboys? I am. So I smile when I look at today's #stampoftheday, a 3-cent stamp, issued in 1952 in honor of America's newspaper boys. Or as the stamp say, it's "in recognition of the important service rendered their communities and their nation." The stamp itself merits a closer look. The …
It is oddly appropriate that I am writing today's #stampoftheday while sitting on my back patio, having just returned from a wonderful and bucolic week on a lightly settled pond in Liberty, Maine. Oddly appropriate because the 3-cent stamp, which was issued in 1952, commemorates the 100th anniversary of the founding of the American Society …
The Marquis de Lafayette, who was both one of the first foreigner to meddle in US domestic affairs and also one of the first foreigners to be inspired by American ideals, sails onto the scene as the subject of today's #stampoftheday. Issued on September 6, 1957 in honor of Lafayette's 200th birthday, the 3-cent stamp …
Clara Barton, who founded the American Red Cross but was later pushed out of that organization, is the focus of today's #stampoftheday, a3-cent stamp issued on September 7, 1948. (It's not clear why the stamp was issued on September 7; the day is not her birthday, the anniversary of when she died, or linked to …
"Law and Order" is one of the most contentious - perhaps even one of the most noxious - political phrases of the last few decades. So I was stunned, when, while looking for something else in one of my late father's stamp albums, I found it on a 6-cent stamp issued in May 1968. The stamp …