Postal History in Finland

• Demand for postal services increased. More newspapers were published, more letters were posted and industry and commerce, including forest industry, developed.
• Stamps introduced in addition to stamped envelopes in 1856.
• Letterboxes placed in more rural areas outside town centres in 1856.
• A new main post office building opened in Nikolainkatu (now Snellmaninkatu) in Helsinki to house the Postal Administration and a post office in 1857.
• Home deliveries made for a special fee (the fee was abandoned in 1885).
• An emblem with two crossed horns was used alongside with the emblem with one horn.
• The first sub-post office established at Mustiala agricultural college in 1860. A sub-post office was cheaper to run than a post office.
• Railway deliveries began when the Helsinki-Hämeenlinna railway was completed in 1862.
• More than 933,000 letters delivered, 0.53/person in 1865 (725,000 paid for, 208,000 free).
• 39 post offices in 1864.
• Women first joined the postal services in 1864.
• Local postal services set up in Helsinki to compete with the government postal services in 1866.
• Finland issued its first perforated stamps with denomination in Finnish pennies and markkas in 1866.
• The first post coach from Helsinki to Vyborg in 1870.
• Steamboat Postiljon started wintertime deliveries between Sweden and the Åland Islands in 1870.
• The first postcards (stamped postcards) introduced in 1871. The world's first postcards published in Austria-Hungary in 1869.

Finland

• Finland switched to right-hand traffic in 1858.
• The Finnish markka accepted in 1860 and introduced in 1865 (silver standard, gold standard adopted in 1877).
• The first Diet since 1809 held in 1863.
• Helsingfors Dagblad suggests a blue cross on a white background for the Finnish flag in 1863.
• Aleksis Kivi published his first play, the tragedy "Kullervo" in 1864.
• The Elementary School Act 1866. Ordinary people learned to read and write. Education increased people's interest in world affairs and their world view expanded.
• The Famine of 1866-68; 8% of the population, around 150,000 people, died.
• Aleksis Kivi's "Seven Brothers" published in 1870.
• Population 1.7 million in 1860.

Global Events

• Hollywood was founded in 1857.
• The first telegraph cable laid between Europe and North America in 1858. It worked for only three weeks as sea water damaged it.
• Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species", the foundation of evolutionary theory, in 1859.
• London Underground opened in 1863.
• Alfred Nobel invented dynamite in 1863. His laboratory exploded the following year.
• Electric motors and generators were developed, and the telephone was patented in the 1870s.
• The English FA Cup, the most longstanding, regular sports competition to date, first held in 1871.