How Much Do You Know About the History of the U.S. Postal Service?

The first postal service in North America was a tie to the motherland. When colonists arrived in North America, many of them wanted to communicate with family and friends back in Britain.

In 1691, Thomas Neale, a British politician and project manager, was granted the powers to establish the North American Postal Service. And so he formed the very first -- and very primitive -- postal service.

In the 1600s, the postal service was very fragmented, serving only very limited (highly populated) areas. People in rural areas had no postal service at all.

Neale established some of the postal service's basics, such as postage rates. And he set about building offices in all of the colonies where people could pick up and drop off letters.

Neale appointed Andrew Hamilton, the colonial governor of New Jersey, to carry out duties as deputy postmaster general. He was later kicked out of his position because he wasn't English-born … and there was a revolution brewing.

In the 1600s, colonists didn't really have any need to send mail to other colonists. They really only wanted to communicate with family back in England.

The USPS had been in operation for decades before the first stamps made the rounds in 1847. Since then, stamps have been issued in a mind-boggling array of designs.

There was no quick communication between the colonies and England in the 1600s. It took months -- sometimes many months -- for letters to travel across the Atlantic.

Because there were no post offices in the early days, the mail went to taverns, inns or other local establishments. That's where people conducted their postal business.

Franklin was an ouspoken proponent of rights for the colonies. British officials knew he was a rebel … so they took away his postal service duties.

Franklin created a standardized rate chart that fixed rates for mail. The chart calculated costs depending on distance and weight.

In 1775, the Continental Congress appointed the esteemed Ben Franklin as Postmaster General of the colonial postal service. Franklin's presence gave the organization instant credibility.

Franklin drastically cut delivery times, sometimes by as much as 50%. He started teams who drove mail wagons both day and night … and quickly, mail delivery became much more efficient.

Franklin was a superb postmaster general. But he was even more valuable as a diplomat -- he was ordered to France to try and convince the French to join the revolutionary cause of the colonies.

When the U.S. unveiled its Constitution, there were just 75 post offices for the entire country. That number would quickly grow.

In 1792, George Washington signed the Postal Service Act, which officially formed the United States Post Office Department.

Franklin used due diligence and persistence to standardize postal service practices. He toured offices all over the country, spotlighting inefficiences and devising clever solutions.

In the 1770s, the British Crown postal service refused to carry any materials that spoke of the revolutionary cause. Goddard's Constitutianal Post, however, brazenly carried all letters, no matter how critical of the Crown.

The British Crown post was totally insecure. British officials often opened letters and used them as evidence of treason against the king.

Two postmasters later ascended to the presidency. They were Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman.

The Pony Express began in 1860 and delivered mail throughout parts of the Wild West. But the iconic serivce was not part of the USPS -- instead, it was operated by private entrepreneurs.

The Postal Inspection Service is the law enforcement division of the postal service. It handles issues with mail fraud, theft, trafficking and threats against postal workers.

By 1822, mail delivery times were improving. It took just 11 days to move mail from D.C. to Nashville, a distance of more than 600 miles.

In the late 18th century, newspaper printers wanted to be local postmasters, too. In doing so, they could mail their publications for free … while conveniently refusing to mail those of their competitors.

In the 1800s, roads in the South and West were pretty terrible. Rivers, on the other hand, offered a convenient way to move mail from one place to another.

In 1918, 15 years after the first manned flight, the postal service began offering airmail. With airmail, the aviation industry really took off.

In '84, as America grew, ZIP codes for very high volume areas were insufficient for sorting. The USPS added four digits to help clarify exactly where specific packages needed to be delivered ... and people hated the new codes with a passion.

It was immediately evident that cars were the future of mail delivery. It took 6 hours, more than twice as long as the car, for a horse-mounted rider to complete the 22-mile route.

During times of war (and in peacetime, too), soldiers eagerly await mail call, the part of the day when they learn if they've received any letters or packages. During long, violent deployments, mail call is an important morale booster.

Post offices are nearly ubiquitous throughout the United States. These days, there are more than 40,000 such offices throughout the land -- a number that would surely boggle the minds of the Founding Fathers.