I’m all about the random facts this year

If anyone else has occasionally wondered how it is that you can put postage from your country of origin on a stamp and have it delivered around the world, here’s how: through the Universal Postal Union, of which most, but not all, countries are members.

One of the most important results of the UPU treaty was that it ceased to be necessary, as it often had been previously, to affix the stamps of any country through which one’s letter or package would pass in transit; the UPU provides that stamps of member nations are accepted for the whole international route.

I wonder how this holds up in wartime. The notion that two countries can be at war, but will still deliver each others’ mail (though perhaps not without government censors on both ends) is one I find quite remarkable.