What year did people start sending mail to other people?

Answer 1

The first letters were sent thousands of years ago, nobody knows exactly when. There was no formal mail system back then and the usual way letters were sent was to find a traveler going in the direction you wanted it to go (e.g. a caravan, someone passing through town) and give it to them. If they did not go all the way they found someone else to take it further, who might pass it to yet someone else, etc. until it was delivered.

The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Chinese, Peruvians, etc. setup systems of couriers or relay runners to carry government and military mail rapidly. But these mail systems were usually not available to ordinary people of the time. The first such known system was in Egypt about 2400BC.

In the United Kingdom, prior to 1840 the postal system was both expensive and confusing. Letters were paid for by the recipient rather than the sender, and were charged according to the distance the letter had travelled and the number of sheets of paper it contained (just imagine having someone send you a large piece of mail from far away and when the postman delivers it to you he demands you pay an amount of postage more than what your job pays in 2 or 3 days and you can neither afford to pay nor can you afford to refuse delivery because the letter is very important in some way). When the United Kingdom reformed this system in 1840 by creating official pre-printed envelopes and adhesive postage stamps that the sender purchased from the post office, they created the first modern postal system.