William Faulkner Was An Iconic Author And A Mediocre Mailman (Cool Weird Awesome 1094)

Today in 1897, the birthday of William Faulkner, the Nobel Prize winning author of novels like The Sound and the Fury, and, for a few years, one of the most unproductive postmasters the US mail has ever seen. 

By |2023-09-25T08:54:17-04:00September 25, 2023|Categories: Cool Weird Awesome, Podcasts|Tags: , , , , , |

25 Days of Holiday Songs 2022: “Mail Early For Christmas” by Jack Webb

The irony of a troupe singing that you’ll “be a mellow fellow,” while Jack Webb is getting tough on holiday laggards!

By |2022-11-08T07:51:23-05:00December 10, 2022|Categories: Blog|Tags: , , , , |

The First Cars Licensed As London Taxis Were Electric Vehicles (Cool Weird Awesome 898)

Today in 1897 is said to be the day that London first licensed motor vehicles as taxicabs. They were nicknamed "hummingbirds" and they were battery-powered.

By |2023-12-06T08:47:04-05:00December 6, 2022|Categories: Cool Weird Awesome, Podcasts|Tags: , , |

The “Parcel Post Bank” Was Mailed To Its Construction Site, A Few Bricks At A Time (Cool Weird Awesome 882)

This day in 1916 was an important day in US Postal Service history - a rule change that came after the community of Vernal, Utah basically had a bank mailed to them, in installments of bricks.

By |2022-11-07T06:14:12-05:00November 7, 2022|Categories: Cool Weird Awesome, Podcasts|Tags: , , , , |

New York City Used To Deliver Mail Through Pneumatic Tubes (Cool Weird Awesome 798)

Today in 2006, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens famously told his colleagues that the Internet was not a dumptruck, it was a series of tubes, figuratively speaking. But here’s a story about some literal tubes that New York City once used to deliver mail.

By |2024-01-10T18:32:16-05:00June 28, 2022|Categories: Cool Weird Awesome, Podcasts|Tags: , , , , |

The “Six Triple Eight” Brought Black Excellence To The Army During World War II (Cool Weird Awesome 709)

Today in 1945, the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, began heading to England for deployment. These 855 servicemembers, all Black women, took on a mission that may not have been glamorous but was considered absolutely essential to the war effort.

By |2022-02-03T06:05:50-05:00February 3, 2022|Categories: Cool Weird Awesome, Podcasts|Tags: , , , , |

Why Don’t Astronauts Do Laundry In Space? (Cool Weird Awesome 569)

There was a story recently about how NASA was partnering with Tide laundry detergent to work on a way to do laundry in space. Which means we don’t already do laundry in space, and there are some pretty big reasons why. Plus: the Royal Mail delivers a letter addressed to a woman who’d been on TV, only the writer didn't exactly have the woman's address. 

By |2021-07-08T09:25:50-04:00July 8, 2021|Categories: Cool Weird Awesome, Podcasts|Tags: , , , |

How Ethel Merman Helped Get America To Use ZIP Codes (Cool Weird Awesome 564)

Today in 1963, the US Postal Service officially started using ZIP codes as a way to quickly sort huge amounts of mail and get it to where it needed to go. How did they get Americans to adopt ZIP codes? A mascot named Mr. Zip and a jingle sung by Broadway legend Ethel Merman.

By |2024-02-23T09:16:49-05:00July 1, 2021|Categories: Cool Weird Awesome, Podcasts|Tags: , , , , |

Henry Brown Escaped From Slavery By Mailing Himself To Philadelphia (Cool Weird Awesome 507)

On this day in 1849, Henry Brown escaped slavery from a Virginia plantation in a very unusual way: he arranged it so he could hide in a small wooden box that was sent to Pennsylvania. Here's some of his story.

By |2024-02-22T06:57:42-05:00March 29, 2021|Categories: Cool Weird Awesome, Podcasts|Tags: , , , |
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