This stamp issue commemorates the 150th anniversary of the birth of Australia’s first international “superstar”, soprano Dame Nellie Melba (1861-1931).

Melba was born Helen Porter Mitchell at Richmond, Melbourne and made her debut at the Melbourne Town Hall in 1884. After an audition in Paris, Mitchell adopted the name Melba after her home city, and made her debut on the European opera stage in Brussels in 1887. After a triumphant season at Covent Garden in London the same year, Melba was feted all over Europe. She became best known for her interpretation of Mimi in Puccini’s La Bohème which she premiered at the Royal Opera House in London in 1899.

Her glittering career continued until the 1920s. In 1927 Melba was appointed Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (G.B.E.). Suffering ill health, she returned to Australia in early 1931 and died in Sydney a few weeks later.

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published May 14th, 2011

Jersey Post is delighted to celebrate the 85th birthday of her majesty The Queen by issuing this GBP 3.00 commemorative stamp in which she is portrayed during Her 2005 visit to Jersey. After one year, the stamp will become the new GBP 3.00 value in Jersey Post’s Definitive range of postage stamps.

During the Queen’s last visit to the Island in 2005, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, the people of Jersey were celebrating the 60th anniversary of Liberation from Occupation by German Forces. During Her address to the crowd in Liberation square, She recalled how the Islanders had impressed Her with their ability to put behind them such difficult times, so quickly and that the special privileges granted to them by the Crown so many centuries ago, had formed the basis of the success the Island of Jersey enjoys today.  (read more)

published May 12th, 2011

It was on the 16^th November 2010 following a great deal of public speculation that an announcement was made by Clarence House confirming that Prince William, oldest son of Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales had become engaged to his long time girl friend Miss Catherine Middleton.

Prince William had actually ‘popped the question’ in October whilst the couple had been on holiday in the remote Rutundu Log Cabin in Laikipia in Kenya but had not made any public announcement until family and friends were advised and decisions could be made about the actual wedding itself.

William and Catherine were both 28 years old when the announcement was made and met whilst students at the University of St Andrews. Until the announcement was made, Catherine, a Fine Arts Graduate worked for her parents company whilst in 2010 William graduated as a Helicopter Pilot. As Flight Lieutenant Windsor he has joined RAF Search and Rescue which celebrates its 70^th Anniversary in 2011 and will co-pilot Sea King helicopters as part of a four-man crew based at RAF Valley in Anglesey on the north-west coast of Wales. Appropriately, the flights also operate internationally in Cyprus (84 Squadron) and the Falkland Islands (1564 Flight).

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published May 8th, 2011

Royal weddings are usually very grand affairs orchestrated amid great pomp and ceremony, and, since Princess Margaret’s wedding to the Earl of Snowden in 1960, watched on television by millions of viewers worldwide. The expected viewing audience for the royal wedding of HRH Prince William to Miss Catherine Middleton is expected to exceed recorded viewing numbers for earlier royal weddings.

Westminster Abbey, featured on the minisheet of this official stamp issue, has been the traditional venue for royal weddings since Prince William¹s great-grandfather, the then Duke of York, married Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the late Queen Mother, there in 1923. The next royal wedding to be held in the Abbey was that of his grandmother, the then Princess Elizabeth, now Queen Elizabeth II, to Prince Philip in 1947.  (read more)

published April 24th, 2011

In 2011 a celebratory postage stamp for Easter was introduced into the annual philatelic programme. This year Easter will be celebrated with a stamp featuring the central moment of the salvific mission of Our Lord – the Resurrection – as seen in a detail of a wall mural located at the main entrance to the Sistine Chapel. The fresco is perhaps one of the least known of the Sistine Chapel and is a work by Flemish painter Hendrick van den Broeck. It is a copy of an original by Ghirlandaio which was destroyed when the door frame collapsed in 1522. The painting is one the masterpieces of the 1400s alongside the frescoed walls and great paintings by Michelangelo.

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published April 18th, 2011

Queen Elizabeth II was born at 2.40am on 21 April 1926 in Mayfair, London, and celebrates her 85th birthday this year. Christened Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, the Queen was the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York, who later became King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.

Following tradition, the official Monarch’s birthday is celebrated in Australia every year in June, with the exception of in Western Australia, where it occurs in late September or early October. To honour the Queen’s birthday in Australia an annual ceremony is held at the Royal Military College at Duntroon in the Australian Capital Territory.

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published April 8th, 2011

Royal Mail is today announcing a special sheet of stamps to commemorate the forthcoming Royal Wedding of His Royal Highness Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton.

The stamps are available to PRE-ORDER at FACE VALUE only on www.wopa-stamps.com (WOPA stand for World Online Philatelic Agency) and orders will be sent as from 21^st April 2011, the issue date and Her Majesty The Queen’s birthday. Click here to view the complete list of available products http://www.wopa-stamps.com/index.php?controller=country&action=stampProduct&id=2978

The stamps feature the official engagement portraits taken by world-renowned photographer Mario Testino on 25^th November. The formal image was taken in the Council Chamber of St James’s Palace, while the informal image shows the couple in the Palace’s Cornwall room.

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published April 3rd, 2011

Why does Åland Post choose to feature on a stamp an explorer and orientalist with the Arabian name Abd-al-Wali? Well, he was born in Åland 200 years ago.

His given name was Georg August Wallin and he was born 24 October 1811 in the Åland municipality of Sund. In 1817, the family moved to Turku when his father was appointed County Treasurer of Turku and Pori County. Then 18-year-old Georg August entered the University of Helsinki in 1829 to study oriental languages and received his MA in 1836. Three years later, he travelled to St. Petersburg, where he met Egyptian Sheikh Muhammad Sayyad al-Tantawi whose tales about the Middle East inspired the young scholar. Wallin conducted his first expedition in Egypt in 1843.

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published March 31st, 2011

The highly anticipated Royal wedding will take place on 29 April 2011 and will be watched by millions of wellwishers around the world.

The ceremony will be held at Westminster Abbey – chosen by the couple for its staggering beauty and 1000-year-old Royal history. It will no doubt be a day of tradition and extravagance, but most importantly a day of celebration.

Heads of state from around the world will be in attendance, as well as members of the British Royal family, and of course close friends and relatives. As the couple walk down the aisle as husband and wife, they’ll be embarking upon a journey of Royal proportions.

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published March 30th, 2011

The Soviet Union Aboard the Vostok 1 spaceship, the cosmonaut Jurij Gagarin (1934 –1968) makes the first orbital flight around the Earth and then lands in the Saratov region. He leaves the space capsule, which brought him safe and sound through the atmosphere, with an ejection seat and ends his historical space flight by parachute. The event marks the first milestone in the space conquest.

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published March 29th, 2011

Born in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, on March 4, 1903, Carrie Best came into a world where the odds were stacked against a woman of colour. When she passed away in 2001, her work as a poet, author, journalist and fearlessly determined activist had done much to bring positive change to black Canadians. 

In 1946, a black woman named Viola Desmond mistakenly sat in the “whites-only” section of a theatre, and was arrested, convicted and fined. Earlier that year, Best had established The Clarion, one of Nova Scotia’s first newspapers for Black Canadians. Together the two women lobbied the provincial government to repeal its segregation laws, which it did in 1954.

In 1954, Best’s radio program, The Quiet Corner, hit the airwaves. From the late 1960s to 1975, she wrote a column on human rights for the Pictou Advocate and spoke out against, among other things, substandard conditions on native reserves and discrimination against black property owners.

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published March 25th, 2011