The opening of the Ceneri Base Tunnel in December 2020 will mark the completion of the New Rail Link through the Alps (NRLA), turning the dream of a flat rail link through the Alps into reality. The NRLA provides Switzerland with modern, high-performance rail infrastructure on Europe’s north-south corridor – and an environmentally-friendly alternative to road transport and travel.
The Soviet Union amazed the world on Nov. 3, 1957, with the launch of the small satellite Sputnik 2. On board was a small dog, Laika, the first animal to actually orbit Earth. Unfortunately Laika was doomed to die during the event as there was no recovery capability at that time and the satellite burned up in the upper atmosphere in April 1958.
From the Great Britain Royal Silver Wedding set of 1972 until the 1979 Christmas set, the printer Harrison & Sons Ltd. placed what have become known as “traffic lights” in the gutter margin of stamp sheets, giving rise to the term. They also exist with the large format Great Britain Machin high values.
On May 13, 1970, two special stamps were issued in the German Democratic Republic (DDR) for the 25th anniversary of broadcasting in the GDR. The two stamps were printed as a pair. The 10 Pfg. has shortwave antennae in front of a globe incorporating the emblem of Radio Berlin while the 15 Pfg. shows the Berliner Funkhaus (broadcasting centre) and the emblems of Berliner Rundfunk, Radio DDR and the German transmitters.
PostBeeld continues daily to add hundreds of new stamps to its vast stock, among some of the new additions is a great amount of British Commonwealth stamps. The first examples show the profile of Queen Victoria on stamps from Trinidad, issued in 1883.
Jack (Jackie) Roosevelt Robinson (b.1919 – d.1972) was a black American professional baseball player who became the first African American to play in American Major League Baseball (MLB) in the modern era. Robinson broke the “baseball collar line” when he started a game at for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. When the Dodgers signed Robinson, it marked the end of racial segregation in professional baseball that had relegated black players to the Negro Leagues since the 1880s. Robinson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.
During his 10-year MLB career, Robinson won the first Rookie of the Year Award in 1947, was chosen for the All-Star team for six consecutive seasons from 1949 through 1954, and won theNational League Most Valuable Player Award in 1949 – the first black player so honoured. Robinson played in six World Series and contributed to the Dodgers’ 1955 World Series championship.
In 1997, MLB retired his shirt number 42 across all major league teams. He was the first professional athlete in any sport to be so honoured. MLB also adopted a new annual tradition, “Jackie Robinson Day”, for the first time on April 15, 2004, on which every player on every team wears the number 42.
Robinson’s character and his talent challenged the traditional basis of segregation that had then marked many other aspects of American life. He influenced the culture of and contributed significantly to the civil rights movement. Robinson also was the first black television analyst in MLB and the first black vice-president of a major American corporation. In the 1960s, he helped establish the Freedom National Bank – an African-American-owned financial institution based in Harlem, New York. After his death in 1972, Robinson was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal and Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of his achievements on and off the field.
In 2000 the U.S.P.S. issued the above stamp sheet, Jackie Robinson featuring top left.
Ralph Johnson Bunche (1904 – 1971) was an American political scientist, academic and diplomat who in 1950 became the first African American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This was in recognition of his late-1940s mediation work in Israel. He was involved in the formation and administration of the United Nations and played a major role in numerous peacekeeping operations sponsored by that organisation. In 1963, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President John F. Kennedy.
Bunche served on the United States delegation to both the Washington Conversations on International Peace and Security Organization in 1944 and the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco in 1945 that drafted the UN charter. Bunche served on the American delegation to the first session of the United Nations General Assembly in 1946. He then joined the UN as head of the Trusteeship Department, and began a long series of troubleshooting roles. In 1948 he became an acting mediator for the Middle East, negotiating an armistice between Egypt and Israel. For this success he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He continued to serve at the United Nations, working on crises in the Sinai (1956), the Congo (1960), Yemen (1963), Cyprus (1964) and Bahrain (1970), reporting directly to the UN Secretary General U Thant. He also chaired study groups dealing with water resources in the Middle East. In 1957 he was promoted to Undersecretary for Special Political Affairs, having prime responsibility for peacekeeping roles. In 1965 he supervised the cease-fire following the war between India and Pakistan. He retired from the UN in 1971.
Is the collection of stamps with the theme ‘Shipwrecks’ popular? There have been many issues worldwide on the subject over the years and this article features a small selection that may encourage interest for the collector looking for a new topic.
Here we have stamps from the Soviet Union (1984) depicting the Soviet Arctic Expedition ship Tchelyuskin, its abandonment after it was crushed by ice and the rescue of the ship’s complement. The stamps commemorated the 50th anniversary of the 1934 event. This was the first time in history wireless communication and aviation were responsible for the rescue of an Arctic expedition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Chelyuskin
Sharks have featured regularly on stamps of many countries and the first example shown here graphically illustrates why one would not want to be confronted with this particular species.
Below you see a 4-value commemorative issue from Switzerland in 1959 was topic-mixed. The 5c stamp was issued to mark the opening in July of that year, of the new Transport Museum in Lucerne. Among other interesting examples of early vehicles to be seen there is one of the old postal coaches which operated in Switzerland until 1920. The 10c was issued for NABAG, the National Philatelic Exhibition, held at St. Gallen. The stamp depicts the arms of the Canton of St. Gallen, a lictor’s symbol, and a posthorn.
For Christmas 1983 and also to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the birth of the Italian artist and architect Raphael (1483-1520), the postal administration of the British Crown Colony of Gibraltar issued a series in November 1983, consisting of three stamps with reproductions of paintings by Raphael.