Introduction
Throughout history there have been many animals that were used for the purposes of letting people communicate with one another. One of the earliest and longest lasting however is that of the carrier pigeon and its cousin species. For thousands of years these birds helped to share words between people and were still used for communication up until the 1950s. These birds may have been small but they made a large impact on how we as humans shared our ideas.
Early Use of Carrier Pigeons
The early history of carrier pigeons is a little hard to pin down. There are few different areas that are believed to have been the start of carrier pigeon communication but most people have agreed that it began in Egypt around 3000 BC. During the time the methods for using the pigeons were a bit more crude and they would simply take the bird from its nest and release it whenever they wished to send a message with the expectation it would find its way home. The next recorded instance is in Mesopotamia around 2000 BC and was believed to allow communication between the various city-states of the region, this is further shown in the story of Noah’s Ark where a dove, a type of pigeon, brings him a message about land. Ancient Greece was the next place the use of carrier pigeons was documented. The pigeons were used to inform the city-states participating in the Olympics Games who won the overall games. The last major use before the turn to AD was by the Romans who used pigeons for a variety of different things. Most notably it was used by the military to inform Rome the results of battles and by the senate to communicate laws. All these early empires were trying to solve the similar problem of trying to decrease communication time between regions.
Early-Modern Use of Carrier Pigeons
The year 1167 was the next notable point for carrier pigeons in Baghdad when the first regular service line was established by Sultan Nur ad-Din between Baghdad and Syria. This pigeon network was later adopted by the Mongols in 1280 after they took over Baghdad. The Mongols would use a pigeon network in order to police their trade lanes which aided heavily in the low amount of banditry they experienced. The next major event that can be seen is the evolution of carrier pigeon use by many European powers for the purposes of military communication. During this time frame we see a clear change from the carrier pigeons being used for a mix of different purposes to being solely used by nation states in order to enforce their command and authority.
Modern Use of Carrier Pigeons
Looking at how carrier pigeons were used past the 1500s we see another clear evolution of how people used them. Many European powers began using pigeons to help them defend their borders due to the speed they could send out messages. In 1860 we saw the next step in the use of carrier pigeons as Brussels began using them in a more civilian manner to inform the citizens of important news and stock prices. This use was short lived however as new technologies replaced them in the civilian area fairly quickly but pigeons were still vital for the operations of militaries. The Franco-Prussian War in 1870 was the first major war that saw extensive use of carrier pigeons by both powers at war which would only encourage their use by other powers by the turn of the century. By WWI in 1914, all nations in the war used carrier pigeons in some way to aid them in the war effort, be it communication between units, distress messages, or artillery coordinates, these birds made an impact on the results of the conflict. Between WWI and WWII many new technologies replaced pigeons but as war once again came to Europe the bird went with it and WWII was the last major war pigeons were a part of before they were replaced.
Impact
The last pigeon service in use closed down in 2006 but the impact of these birds can not be understated. It is fair to say that many of our modern technologies would not be the same if it were not for carrier pigeons creating these ideas of what we were looking for in a communication technology and creating a base for other technology to be based around.
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