The first official airmail flight took wings today in 1911.
French pilot Henry Pequet, representing the Humber Motor Company of England at the Industrial and Agricultural Exhibition in Allahabad, India, carried over 6,000 cards and letters on his Humber-Sommer biplane a distance of 13 km (8.1 miles) from Allahabad to Naini, India. He made the journey in thirteen minutes.
Domestic U.S. Air Mail was formally established as a new class of service by the Post Office Department on May 15, 1918, with the inauguration of the Washington–Philadelphia–New York route for which the first of special Air Mail stamps were issued.