9 October

World Post Day is celebrated each year on 9 October, the anniversary of the establishment of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) in 1874 in the Swiss capital, Bern. It was declared World Post Day by the UPU Congress held in Tokyo, Japan, in 1969.

The purpose of World Post Day is to create awareness of the role of the postal sector in people’s and businesses’ everyday lives and its contribution to the social and economic development of countries. The celebration encourages member countries to undertake programme activities aimed at generating a broader awareness of their Post’s role and activities among the public and media on a national scale.

Every year, more than 150 countries celebrate World Post Day in a variety of ways. In certain countries, World Post Day is observed as a working holiday. Many Posts use the event to introduce or promote new postal products and services. Some Posts also use World Post Day to reward their employees for good service.

In many countries, philatelic exhibitions are organized and new stamps and date cancellation marks are issued. Other activities include the display of World Post Day posters in post offices and other public places, open days at post offices, mail centers and postal museums, the holding of conferences, seminars and workshops, as well as cultural, sport and other recreational activities. Many postal administrations issue special souvenirs such as T-shirts and badges.

Events

768 – Carloman I and Charlemagne are crowned Kings of The Franks.
1238 – James I of Aragon conquers Valencia and founds the Kingdom of Valencia.
1264 – The Kingdom of Castile conquers the city of Jerez that was under Muslim occupation since 711.
1446 – The hangul alphabet is published in Korea.
1514 – Marriage of Louis XII of France and Mary Tudor.
1558 – Mérida is founded in Venezuela.
1582 – Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar, this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
1595 – The Spanish army captures Cambrai.
1604 – Supernova 1604, the most recent supernova to be observed in the Milky Way.
1635 – Founder of Rhode Island Roger Williams is banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a religious dissident after he speaks out against punishments for religious offenses and giving away Native American land.
1701 – The Collegiate School of Connecticut (later renamed Yale University) is chartered in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.
1708 – Peter the Great defeats the Swedes at the Battle of Lesnaya.
1740 – Dutch colonists and various slave groups begin massacring ethnic Chinese in Batavia, eventually killing 10,000 and leading to a two-year-long war throughout Java.
1760 – Seven Years' War: Russian forces occupy Berlin.
1771 – The Dutch merchant ship Vrouw Maria sinks near the coast of Finland.
1776 – Father Francisco Palou founds Mission San Francisco de Asis in what is now San Francisco, California.
1799 – Sinking of HMS Lutine, with the loss of 240 men and a cargo worth £1,200,000.
1804 – Hobart, capital of Tasmania, is founded.
1806 – Prussia declares war on France.
1812 – War of 1812: In a naval engagement on Lake Erie, American forces capture two British ships: HMS Detroit and HMS Caledonia.
1820 – Guayaquil declares independence from Spain.
1824 – Slavery is abolished in Costa Rica.
1831 – Capo d'Istria, the first head of state of independent Greece is assassinated.
1834 – Opening of the Dublin and Kingstown Railway, the first public railway on the island of Ireland.
1845 – The eminent and controversial Anglican, John Henry Newman, is received into the Roman Catholic Church.
1854 – Crimean War: The siege of Sebastopol begins.
1861 – American Civil War: Battle of Santa Rosa Island – Union troops repel a Confederate attempt to capture Fort Pickens.
1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Tom's Brook – Union cavalrymen in the Shenandoah Valley defeat Confederate forces at Tom's Brook, Virginia.
1873 – A meeting at the U.S. Naval Academy establishes the U.S. Naval Institute.
1874 – General Postal Union is created as a result of the Treaty of Berne.
1888 – The Washington Monument officially opens to the general public.
1907 – Las Cruces, New Mexico is incorporated.
1911 – An accidental bomb explosion in Hankou, Wuhan, China leads to the ultimate fall of the Qing Empire
1913 – Steamship SS Volturno catches fire in the mid-Atlantic.
1914 – World War I: Siege of Antwerp – Antwerp, Belgium falls to German troops.
1919 – Black Sox scandal: The Cincinnati Reds win the World Series.
1934 – Regicide at Marseille: The assassination of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia and Louis Barthou, Foreign Minister of France.
1936 – Generators at Boulder Dam (later renamed to Hoover Dam) begin to generate electricity from the Colorado River and transmit it 266 miles to Los Angeles, California.
1940 – World War II: Battle of Britain – During a night-time air raid by the German Luftwaffe, St. Paul's Cathedral in the City of London, England is hit by a bomb.
1941 – A coup in Panama declares Ricardo Adolfo de la Guardia Arango the new president.
1942 – Statute of Westminster 1931 formalises Australian autonomy.
1942 – The last day of the October Matanikau action on Guadalcanal as United States Marine Corps forces withdraw back across the Matanikau River after destroying most of the Imperial Japanese Army's 4th Infantry Regiment.
1945 – Parade in NYC for Fleet Admiral Nimitz and 13 USN/USMC Medal of Honor recipients
1950 – Goyang Geumjeong Cave Massacre started.
1962 – Uganda becomes an independent Commonwealth realm.
1963 – In northeast Italy, over 2,000 people are killed when a large landslide behind the Vajont Dam causes a giant wave of water to overtop it.
1966 – Vietnam War: Binh Tai massacre
1966 – Vietnam War: Dien Nien-Phuoc Binh massacre
1967 – A day after being captured, Marxist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara is executed for attempting to incite a revolution in Bolivia.
1969 – In Chicago, the United States National Guard is called in for crowd control as demonstrations continue in connection with the trial of the "Chicago Eight" that began on September 24.
1970 – The Khmer Republic is proclaimed in Cambodia.
1981 – Abolition of capital punishment in France.
1983 – Rangoon bombing: attempted assassination of South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan during an official visit to Rangoon, Burma. Chun survives but the blast kills 17 of his entourage, including four cabinet ministers, and injures 17 others. Four Burmese officials also die in the blast.
1986 – The musical The Phantom of the Opera has its first performance at Her Majesty's Theatre in London.
1989 – An official news agency in the Soviet Union reports the landing of a UFO in Voronezh.
1991 – Ecuador becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
1992 – A 13 kilogram (est.) fragment of the Peekskill meteorite lands in the driveway of the Knapp residence in Peekskill, New York, destroying the family's 1980 Chevrolet Malibu
1995 – An Amtrak Sunset Limited train is derailed by saboteurs near Palo Verde, Arizona.
1999 – The last flight of the SR-71.
2001 – Second mailing of anthrax letters from Trenton, New Jersey in the 2001 anthrax attack.
2003 – Mission: SPACE opens to the public in the Epcot park at Walt Disney World. The opening ceremony included several astronauts from all eras of space exploration.
2006 – North Korea allegedly tests its first nuclear device.
2009 – First lunar impact of the Centaur and LCROSS spacecrafts as part of NASA's Lunar Precursor Robotic Program.

Holidays and observances

Christian Feast Day:
Denis
Dionysius the Areopagite
Ghislain
John Henry Newman
John Leonardi
October 9 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Hangul Day (South Korea)
Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Uganda from United Kingdom in 1962.
Independence of Guayaquil from Spain in 1820 (Guayaquil)
Leif Erikson Day (United States, Iceland and Norway)
National Day of Commemorating the Holocaust (Romania)
Takayama Autumn Festival (Takayama)
World Post Day (International)