Culture
Allow This 1960s Folk Sextet to Sell You on the Virtues of the ZIP Code
The mailing system was born 50 years ago this week. Here's how the Post Office sold it to the country.
Yesterday marked the 50th birthday of the ZIP code.
Initially, the United States Post Office Department (dissolved and replaced with the USPS in 1971) created a two-digit code in 1943, assigning numbers to the country's largest cities. In 1963, the Post Office replaced that with the 5-digit system which became mandatory for second and third class bulk mailers in 1967.