| National Postal Museum

29-cent stamp featuring a painting of Billie Holiday singing

July 17, 1959

Billie Holiday dies at age 44. She was commemorated on a stamp in 1994.

6-cent stamp featuring a painting of Walt Disney

July 17, 1955

Disneyland, Walt Disney's metropolis of nostalgia, fantasy, and futurism, opens. Walt Disney was commemorated on a stamp in 1968.

Postmaster General Lawrence O'Brien sitting at a desk, posing for a photo

July 17, 1917

Lawrence O'Brien, future Postmaster General (1965-1968), is born in Springfield, Massachusetts.

33-cent stamp with painting of actor James Cagney

July 17, 1899

Actor James Cagney is born in New York City. He was honored on a stamp in 1999.

five-gallon steel mail pail, "US Mail" painted on the side

July 17, 1895

Detroit River mail service begins. Mail contractors use boats to carry mail to and from Great Lake ships. Mail is exchanged in buckets lowered from the huge ships to the tiny mail boats.

painting of Postmaster General Timothy Pickering

July 17, 1745

Timothy Pickering, Postmaster General (1791-1795), is born in Salem, Massachusetts.

Pilot Howard Smith's face in newspaper print

July 16, 1921

Airmail pilot Howard F. Smith dies when his de Havilland airmail plane nose dives as he is leaving the field. The plane burst into flames on crashing.

July 16, 1775

William Goddard's “Constitutional Post" is adopted and implemented by the Continental Congress.

10-cent Apollo Soyuz Space stamp depicting the two spacecrafts after their link-up

July 15, 1975

The US and Soviet postal authorities issue twin stamp designs commemorating their joint Apollo-Soyuz space flight.

Benjamin B. Lipsner posing for a photograph

July 15, 1918

The Post Office Department appoints Benjamin Lipsner as Superintendent of the US Airmail Service.

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