October 9 — The Universal Postal Union was established. At the Universal Postal Congress of 1874 in Berne, on the initiative of the Imperial Postmaster General Heinrich von Stephan, the Universal Postal Union was founded; today it has the status of a specialized agency of the UN. Under the Universal Postal Convention adopted by the congress, all states that joined the UPU were declared a “single postal territory” with uniform postal rates for international correspondence.
On October 9, this congress adopted the “Universal Uniform Postal Convention,” which applied to Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Great Britain, Germany, Greece, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Romania, Serbia, Turkey, Montenegro, Switzerland, Sweden, and, from non-European countries, the United States of America and Egypt. This document radically simplified and facilitated the exchange of postal correspondence between states. Today, the UPU is an intergovernmental organization that ensures and improves postal links within the single postal territory formed by the Universal Postal Union. It brings together virtually all countries of the world, including Russia.