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🇧🇩 Bangladesh Post -
30 December 2024 - Festival of Youth - 1 stamp. Lithographed by The Security Printing Corporation (Bangladesh) Ltd, Gazipur. Rating:- ***.
9 February 2025 - The July Uprising which led to the overthrow of the prime minister Sheikh Hasina - 1 stamp. Lithographed by Security Printing Corporation (Bangladesh) Ltd, Gazipur. Rating:- *****. A modest stamp commemorating a highly significant historical event.
19 February 2025 - Mother Language Day - 1 stamp. Designed by Md Boni Adam and lithographed by Security Printing Corporation (Bangladesh) Ltd, Gazipur. Perforated 12.5. Rating:- **.
Trump and The Commonwealth.
There has been a lot of nonsense published in the press in the past day or so about the President of the United States, Trump, expressing the view that he would like his country to become an Associate Member of The Commonwealth. This idea is said to have arisen from the suggestion that the Royal Commonwealth Society has issued a secret invitation for The United States to take on such a role. The Royal Commonwealth Society is not the sort of organisation that can issue invitations to countries to join The Commonwealth; there is no ‘Associate Membership’ status in The Commonwealth: The King is not in a position to invite countries to join The Commonwealth - it is necessary for all 56 Member States together to extend an invitation to join and when the United States President is talking about an important Commonwealth country such as Canada becoming the 51st state of the USA very much against its citizens’ will, then these reports are clearly nothing short of Trumpery moonshine.
All this fake news, to use Trump’s own expression, comes as the United States Postal Service has announced that it intends to issue a sheetlet of 15 self-adhesive stamps showing battlefields of the rebellion against the British Crown which began with the Battles of Lexington and Concord fought on 19 April 1765, 250 years ago. Trump claims to admire King Charles III rather more than his predecessors seem to have admired King George III.
US Battlefields sheet illustration seems to show sheet of 10 (NOT 15 as stated in text) and date of first Battles as 1775 (NOT 1765 as in article text)
ReplyDeleteYes, you are right - the illustration seems to show 10 - but if you look closely, all of what look like long stamps are divided by perforations with a’USA Forever’ value on each part making, I assume, 2 stamps out of 1 and causing the sheet to be made up of 15 stamps and not 10.
DeleteThe pane of 15 stamps memorializes five turning points in the fight for American independence. Watercolor paintings depicting scenes of five battles appear alongside photographs of sites involved in each battle.
ReplyDeleteAs the first armed conflicts of the American Revolution, the Battle of Lexington and Concord ignited outrage in Massachusetts and showed the potential of citizen soldiers, relying on local organizing and knowledge of their home terrain, to confront the highly trained and professional British military.
Fought primarily on Breed’s Hill just outside Boston, the Battle of Bunker Hill was an early demonstration of American tenacity. Although the battle was a tactical loss for the Americans, heavy casualties forced the stunned British to rethink their strategy for the long war to come.
Notable for the victory that followed George Washington’s risky and audacious crossing of the Delaware River from Pennsylvania into New Jersey, the Battle of Trenton highlighted Washington’s ability to see opportunity in desperate times, rally his army, and save the revolutionary cause.
In New York, the Battles of Saratoga halted a determined British campaign to divide the Colonies. American resolve at Freeman’s Farm and Bemis Heights drew international support that ultimately secured independence.
As the last major land battle of the Revolutionary War, the Battle of Yorktown involved a weekslong American siege of this Virginia city and prompted a British surrender, a testimony to both the strategic leadership of George Washington and the essential support of the French.
The pane of 15 stamps memorializes five turning points in the fight for American independence. Watercolor paintings depicting scenes of five battles appear alongside photographs of sites involved in each battle.
ReplyDelete