US Postal System Was Created Long After the Mongol System

Used to think it was Ben Franklin's idea for the United States Post Office and what an amazing creation it was. In his great biography of Marco Polo, From Venice to Xanadu, Laurence Bergreen reports that Marco Polo was amazed in the 13th Century of the elaborate messenger system used by the Mongols led at the time by Kublai Kahn. The postal system then had stations for horsemen every 25 miles. Human runners supplemented the horse delivery system for shorter distances.