History
The use of gum was part of the original proposal by Rowland Hill, and most stamps have been gummed. Many early stamps were not gummed, however, and some have been unable to be gummed due to shortages, for instance the typewritten Uganda Cowry stamps of 1895. Extreme tropical climates were also a problem for Curaçao and Suriname. Some stamps, intended only for sale to stamp collectors have been issued without gum, for instance the United States Farley's Follies souvenir sheets of 1933. On the first stamps of Great Britain the gum was called cement and was made from a mixture of potato starch, wheat starch and acacia gum.
Read more about this topic: Postage Stamp Gum
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“A country grows in history not only because of the heroism of its troops on the field of battle, it grows also when it turns to justice and to right for the conservation of its interests.”
—Aristide Briand (1862–1932)
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“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)