| National Postal Museum

railway mail clerks sorting mail in a cramped rail car

The Newton, Kansas and Galveston Railway post office train #6 is robbed at 10:15 pm near Fort Worth, Texas.

Apollo 11 "Moon Cover" postmarked in flight featuring a First Man on the Moon stamp

July 20, 1969

Astronaut Neil Armstrong and the Eagle crew made the first manned lunar landing on July 20, 1969. They carried an envelope franked with a die proof of the First Man on the Moon stamp. Probably struck on July 22, the postmark is backdated to July 20.

Overprint on 1sh stamp of Samoan Kingdom stamp

July 20, 1900

The US Post Office Department establishes its first post office on American Samoa.

25-cent stamp featuring a painting of Ernest Hemingway with antelope on an African landscape in the background

July 2, 1961

Writer Ernest Hemingway dies in Ketchum, Idaho of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was commemorated on a stamp in 1989.

29-cent stamp featuring a painting of Buddy Holly playing guitar

July 2, 1956

Buddy Holly's first single, “Love Me" is released. He was commemorated on a stamp in 1993.

Amelia Earhart posing for a photograph with an airplane in the background

July 2, 1937

Aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart's plane disappears in the Pacific.

July 2, 1936

Three mail-carrying rockets are launched from Texas to Mexico. The experiment fails when one explodes and a second crashes into a cantina.

Pilot Charles Lamborn poses for a photo wearing a helmet and goggles

July 19, 1919

Airmail pilot Charles W. Lamborn dies after losing control of his de Havilland aircraft in fog at a low altitude

9.35 dollar stamp featuring an eagle and the Moon

July 18, 1983

US Postal Service inaugurates its Express Mail “Next Day" delivery service. Cost is $9.35 for up to two pounds in weight.

6-cent stamp with illustration of James A. Garfield

July 18, 1894

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing issues its first United States stamp - a 6 cent stamp depicting President Garfield.

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