On this day in 1807, Curacao was occupied by the British, who established a post office at Willemstad to serve the islands of Curacao, Aruba, and Bonaire. Posal markings were introduced and were the first used in the islands.

To learn more about the Dutch administration of the Carribean Netherlands, which included Curacao, read this article.

In 1879, Sir Rowland Hill died. His burial took place in Westminster Abbey. In 1837, Sir Rowland Hill introduced the idea of the sender pre-paying postage with an adhesive postage stamp to send a letter. On January 10, 1840, the Uniform Penny Postage reform allowed anyone to post a letter weighing up to ½ ounce anywhere in the United Kingdom for only a penny. This change was so popular that the United States decided to reform their way of sending letters too. The U.S. introduced their first postage stamps in 1847. Click here to learn more about the first stamp in the world and click here to learn more about the first U.S. stamps.

A day later in 1912, A special cancel featuring an aircraft was placed on mail flown at the Fairgrounds Aviation Meet that took place from August 28 - 31 in Boonville, Indiana. An example of a sold special cover from the event and similar meetups are available here. 

An image of post cards with the special cancel, courtesy of Siegel Auction Galleries.

The same day in 1928, Ecuador issued its first airmail stamps, pictured in the cover image above. The stamps were overprints reading "Ecuador", "Provisional", and the new denomination on an earlier stamp design featuring the Magdalena River and Tolima Volcano. There are a total of 10 stamps in the set, with the first 8 stamps being airmail stamps and the last 2 being registration stamps. The values of the stamps range from 50 Ecuadorian cents to 3 Ecuadorian sucre. 

All of the stamps have a perforation of 14 by 14.5 and have a size of 25 by 33 milimeters. They were also all printed using offset lithography by Reichsdruckerei and designed by Richard Klein. Print runs ranged from 500 to 9000 for the 1 Ecuadorian sucre stamp.

A year later, The LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin left Los Angeles for Lakehurst, New Jersey overflying El Paso, Texas and Chicago and arriving at Lakehurst the following day. Collectors in the United States regard this as the completion of the round-the-world flight.

To learn more about mail carried on the airship, watch this video from Exploring stamps and this episode of Conversations with Philatelists.

Two years later, the flying boat Dornier DO-X arrived at New York on it's flight to Norfolk, Virginia.

Two days after that, the LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin left on the first of three flights to South America during 1931. Brazil issued two stamps marking the flight.

The two stamps were overprints on the 19th of october 1901 and 12th of May 1902 flight airmail stamps. The first stamp had an overprinted value of 2,500 Brazilian (old) réis and a print run of 49,906. The second stamp had an overprinted value of 5,000 Brazilian (old) réis and a print run of 47,017. Both stamps are perforated 12.5 by 13.5.

The two stamps commemorating the flight 

In 1959 on the same day, the United Nations issued its first aerogramme. The release coincided with the annual convention of the American Air Mail Society in New York.