Carrier Pigeons! The New Big Thing!

 Blog Post #5

Carrier Pigeons! The New Big Thing!

Carrier Pigeons Today

So, carrier pigeons may be a mostly-outdated technology in the twenty-first century, however, it is not an entirely obsolete technology in today's world and are still used. In fact, according to an article recently published by The Guardian, a suspected spy pigeon was recently released from authorities in India after being detained for eight months, as Indian authorities believed it was sent from China to commit espionage. While technology has advanced far past the apparent need to use carrier pigeons, they are still seen as a mode of information transportation that is more resistant to information interception and hacking than many of today's modern technologies. 

Historical Importance of the Carrier Pigeon

According to Tess' presentation, the carrier pigeon can be traced back to 3000 BCE in Ancient Egypt. In this era, the pigeons were used to bring major news to people that did not live in the immediate area in which the news was occurring. It is the first time in history we see a mode of communications used in order to increase the speed in the transfer of
information between people. 

The next major historical significance carrier pigeons have is in 1167 AD. This came with the establishment of the Baghdad/Syria Route for the pigeons to travel along. Next, was in 1860 when Paul Julius Reuter used carrier pigeons to transmit the news of changing stock prices from Brussels to Aachen. While this is far different than the down-to-the-second stock ticker that can be instantly found by anyone with internet access, at the time this was essential to investors ability to know how their stocks and companies were performing. In 1897 Australia creates the Great Barrier Pigeongram Service. This service was a complete postal service separate from that of the actual postal service, down to the production and use of stamps in order to send messages via pigeon through the offered service. 

In the twentieth century carrier pigeons were essential to communication transmission, still. While more prevalent in World War I, they were essential to communication efforts in both World Wars. Carrier Pigeons were so essential to the war effort in World War I that we have pigeons that are famous and considered to be war heroes. Pigeons are essential to all kinds of communications in World War I, as well as being essential to the invasion of Normandy in World War II. 

Now carrier pigeons are mainly used for a single police force in India and for some less joyful reasons-prison smuggling. It is amazing that a technology that is truly not even thought of as a technology anymore, was once so integral to communicating at a rapid pace. It is even crazier when you think about the fact that we often get angry when a text takes more than thirty seconds to go through. The importance of carrier pigeons should not be forgotten, it connected a world where doing so was once incredibly difficult and time consuming. From bringing information at what was a rapid pace when they were first in use to becoming war heroes, carrier pigeons are a truly unique and interesting early form of technology.