HALLOWED HISTORY OF THE CARRIER PIGEONS
The first messagebearing pigeon was loosed by Noah. The ancient Romans used pigeons for chariot races, to tell owners how their entries had placed. Genghis Khan established pigeon relay posts across and Asia and much of Eastern Europe. Charlemagne made pigeonraising the exclusive privilege of nobility. The Rothschild fortune is said to have been seriously augmented by a pigeon bearing news of the British victory at Waterloo. But it was in the Siege of Paris in 1870 that the carrier pigeon won its wings. As the Prussians advanced, the system of stuffing dispatches into hollow metal balls and floating them down the Seine somehow proved ineffective. But six days after the Siege began on Sept. 19, a balloon called La Ville de Florence sent off three pigeons at 11 a. m. They were back, mission accomplished, by 5 p. m. When an armistice was declared at the end of January, 409 pigeons had been used and 73 had returned safely, notes the museum display, braving cold, fatigue, Prussian bullets and falcons
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