Today we're going to discuss the history of the postal service. Before the 19th century, mail delivery was slow and unreliable. In the UK, the Penny Post was introduced in 1840, which made sending letters affordable for ordinary people. However, it was not until the invention of the railway that mail could be transported quickly across long distances. Interestingly, the first airmail service began in 1911 in India, carrying letters a short distance. But it was the development of the postal code system in the 1960s that truly revolutionized mail sorting, allowing machines to automatically route letters. So, the key innovation that improved speed was the railway, not the postage stamp.