Sporting XYZ

 

1996: Olympic Games

The XXVI Olympic Games in Atlanta. The first time Uzbekistan competed as an independent nation.

1970: Football World Championships

Football's Jules Rimet Cup was awarded to the winners of the FIFA World Cup between 1930 and 1970. Named after the FIFA President who initiated the tournament, the trophy went permanently to Brazil when they won it for the third time in 1970.  In 1938 Italy won the trophy in France. When the Nazis occupied Rome in 1943 the Italian football official Ottorino Barassi took the trophy from a bank vault and hid it in a shoe box beneath his bed to prevent it being stolen or melted down by the occupying forces. 

  Brazil won the Jules Rimet trophy for the first time in 1958 beating the hosts Sweden

and for the second time in Chile 1962

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1982: World Cup

The 1982 World Cup in Spain. The stamp features El Salvador and Hungary. This would he the last time that El Salvador qualified for the tournament. Hungary beat them 10-1 in the first round but despite that did not advance to the second round.

Sunday Stamps A-Z for -  the roman numeral X, Yemen and Zaire - See It On A Postcard 

Yemen Yellow

 

1970: World Cup, Mexico

The yellow stripe of the Belgium flag shows up on this stamp and a photo of Paul Van Himst, one of the greats of Belgium football, who played in the Mexico world cup

1990: World Cup, Italy

The Belgium flag also makes an appearance and features a match from the very first world cup in Uruguay 1930. All the games were played in Montevideo, 16 teams were planned to attend but only13 competed due to withdrawals.

1969: History of Outer Space Exploration

Now one might see the moon dust as grey but Yemen has decided yellow is a cheerier colour and gives us a sunny day on the moon.

Sunday Stamps A-Z  and Y here is for - Yellow and Yemen - See It On A Postcard

  

Public Buildigs

 

1970: Football World Championships

The impressive Stockholm City Hall, the tall tower is the one nearest the water (Lake Malaren) and is topped by the three crowns, Sweden's national symbol.

1980: 50th Anniversary of the National Hospital

If unlucky enough to be in hospital this looks to be a very pleasant place to stay. I think the building has been preserved but today there is a new National Hospital that dwarfs this one in size and no doubt equipment.

1988: Centenary of Urania Science Museum

This stamp shows both the old and new buildings of the Urania Science Museum in Berlin.

2000: Opening of Singapore Post Centre - History of the Central Post Office

The only way to end is with some post offices. The official launch in 2000 of the new Singapore Post Centre gave them the opportunity to celebrate their buildings from the

first in the 1800s when Singapore welcomed its first mail steamer but as volumes of post increased a new building was required and the General Post Office was built in 1897.

The GPO moved to the new Fullerton Buildings in 1928, which was also when the first airmail flight was dispatched from Singapore.  The mail sorting operation was eventually moved in 1998 to a new facility and then the shiny new SingPost Centre opened in 2000

Sunday Stamp theme - Public Buildings - visit  See It On A Postcard

Yemen

From 1962-1970 Yemen was divided into two by civil war with republicans against royalists. Both sides issued stamps. By 1968 the republicans had more or less won so these stamps were the last hurrah for the royalists (The Mutawakelite Kingdom of Yemen)

1969: History of Outer Space Exploration

The depiction of Apollo 12 landing on the moon made an appearance on this, a sort of miniature sheet meets stamp (giant envelope required). Apollo 12 landed near the Ocean of Storms, an appropriate choice in retrospect, for the mission is remembered for the rocket surviving two lightning strikes during launch.

Here is Apollo 12 launching on 14th November 1969. The three US presidents appear in the sky on the stamp and one of them, Richard Nixon, became the first incumbent president to attend a rocket launch.

The first man to exit the lunar module Intrepid was Pete Conrad who would later command the first space mission to the space station Skylab which involved him taking many tricky spacewalks to tinker with the space station which had been badly damaged at launch.

The lunar module touched down with little fuel to spare near Surveyor 3, a robotic spacecraft that had landed on the moon two years earlier which I think is portrayed on this stamp  -

with the other member of the of the lunar landing, Alan Bean, who quipped "Don't come to the moon without a hammer" when his companion Conrad struggled with deploying a nuclear-powered experiment package and as a last resort hit it with a hammer.

The other member of the team whose name appears on one of my favourite NASA mission badges was the command module pilot Richard 'Dick' Gordon.

The Lunar New Year of the Pig provides another letter Y this week here

Sunday Stamps II prompt of the Letter Y - for Yemen and year - See It On A Postcard

Y

1968: Paintings by Van Gogh

Where better to start than with a postman and thanks to Vincent Van Gogh his name lives on, Joseph Roulin. Van Gogh loved to paint portraits but he could not afford to pay anyone to sit for him however the Roulin family in Arles were happy to do so for nothing and in exchange Vincent gave each family member one of the numerous paintings he made of them; worth more than money I think.  From a yellow background to

a yellow jacket worn by Joseph Roulin's eldest son Armand who at the time of the painting was aged 17.

1980: Flags of Member Nations (1st Series) - Yugoslavia

Here is a flag that does not flutter in the wind anymore when the nations of this part of the world were joined under the one flag of Yugoslavia.  The various nations featured individually on

1957: Yugoslav Costumes (1st Series)

Yugoslavia's series of stamps featuring national costumes. This scene above shows a Croatian family of shepherds

1961: Yugoslav Costumes (2nd series)

and here are some Macedonians dancing into the stamp to the sound of a drum. At first I was unsure of the significance of the dates 1941-1961 but 1941was the date the Nazi's invaded Yugoslavia (the April War) when the Royal Yugoslav Army collapsed and the king and several ministers fled into exile.  I discovered that 1941 was also important for the forming of the first partisan battalions and resistance to the occupying armies, a date search revealed there were medals awarded to the armed forces in 1961 to mark the 20th Anniversary of the Yugoslav People's Army (the founding of the Partisan Army).

The stamp designer is Zdenka Sertić (1899-1986), artist and ethnographer who produced a number of folkloric stamp series for Yugoslavia and her nephew has produced a beautifully illustrated page of her work here (the English translation is at the bottom).

Sunday Stamps II prompt of the Letter Y -  for Yemen, Yugoslavia and yellow - See It On A Postcard