For a long time, my collection held but a solitary stamp from the Caribbean island of St. Vincent. That stamp was featured on the colony’s stamp issuers article back in June 2017. I recently sought to add more and purchased a small “mystery” mixed lot of St. Vincent stamps. However, only three were inscribed thusly. One sheet of eight stamps bore the inscription St. Vincent … Continue reading The Seal of St. Vincent Colony
On February 6, 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi ITe Tiriti o Waitangi in Māori) was signed by representatives of the British Crown and Māori chiefs (rangatira), establishing New Zealand as a British colony.The Treaty of Waitangi. It is a document of central importance to the history and political constitution of the state of New Zealand, and has been highly significant in framing the political relations between … Continue reading The Treaty of Waitangi
On January 29, 1819, Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles, FRS, arrived at Singapore after having landed on Saint John’s Island the previous day. He soon recognized the island as a natural choice for the new port.The establishment of a British trading post there by Raffles led to its founding as a British colony in 1824. This event has generally been understood to mark the founding … Continue reading Stamford Raffles & the Founding of Modern Singapore
On January 20, 1841, Hong Kong Island was occupied by the British during the First Opium War. The island was ceded by Qing China in the aftermath of the war in 1842 and established as a Crown colony in 1843. The colony expanded to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 after the Second Opium War and was further extended when Britain obtained a 99-year lease of … Continue reading The British Colony of Hong Kong
San Fernando is the second most populous city in Trinidad and Tobago, after Chaguanas. It occupies 18 km² and is located in the southwestern part of the island of Trinidad. It is bounded to the north by the Guaracara River, the south by the Oropouche River, the east by the Sir Solomon Hochoy Highway, and the west by the Gulf of Paria. The former borough … Continue reading San Fernando, Trinidad & Tobago
On September 11, 1609. Henry Hudson discovered Manhattan Island and the indigenous people living there. Hudson was an English sea explorer and navigator during the early 17th century, best known for his explorations of present-day Canada and parts of the northeastern United States. In 1607 and 1608, Hudson made two attempts on behalf of English merchants to find a rumored Northeast Passage to Cathay (present-day … Continue reading Henry Hudson and the Early History of Manhattan
On August 11, 1786, Captain Francis Light of the British East India Company established the British Settlement of Prince of Wales Island which later became the Colony of Penang in what is now Malaysia. The capital of the colony —George Town — was the first British colony in Southeast Asia. Captain Light had previously tried to convince the East India Company to establish a settlement on Phuket … Continue reading Captain Francis Light and the Early Years of Penang
Elephants are one of the most popular animals to be portrayed on stamps and have been featured twice on A Stamp A Day in articles about Laos and Thailand, both of the Asian variety. Today’s entry describes a subspecies of the Asian elephant as well as the traditional handler, called a mahout, both pictured on a 1909 stamp issued for the British protectorate state of … Continue reading The Borneo Elephant and Mahout
A Stamp A Day 