POP QUIZ (IT'S IN THE MAIL)

With the postmaster general calling for "radical" changes in mail delivery ----- such as the ending of Saturday service ---- let's look back at the history of the U.S. Postal Service.

1. In what year did the Continental Congress appoint Benjamin Franklin the first postmaster general?
a) 1770
b) 1775
c) 1780
d) 1785
2. True or False: In the early years of postal service, it was the receiver who paid for delivery.
3. These two founding fathers appeared on the first U.S. Stamps.
a) Benjamin Franklin and George Washington
b) George Washington and Abraham Lincoln
c) George Washington Thomas Jefferson
d) Thomas Jefferson and James Madison
4. In what year were those first two stamps issued?
a) 1802
b) 1824
c) 1847
d) 1863
5. What did those first stamps cost?
a) 1 cent and 2 cents
b) 2 cents and 3 cents
c) 3 cents and 5 cents
d) 5 cents and 10 cents
6. The first Pony Express service was a 2,000-mile trek from this city to Sacramento, Calif.
a) Philladelphia
b) Washington
c) Cleveland
d) St. Joseph, Mo.
7. About how long did it take for Pony Express riders to travel 2,000 miles?
a) Five days
b) Ten days
c) Thirteen days
d) Thirty days
8. The Inscription on the James Farley Post Office building in New York ---"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds"  --- comes from whom?
a) Marcus Aurelius
b) Socrates
c) Herodotus
d) Plato
9. True or False : The U.S. Postal Service once experimented with delivering mail by cruise missile.
10. Earle L. Ovington is credited with the first official air mail delivery ---- from Garden City to Mineola, N.Y. ---- in 1911.  Which famous inventor did Ovington work for?
a) Thomas Edison
b) Orville Wright
c) Alexander Graham Bell
d) Cyrus McCormick


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Answers : 1. b  ; 2. True  ; 3. a  ; 4. c  ; 5. d  ; 6. d  ; 7. b  ; 8. c  ; 9. True  ; 10. a