You've Got Mail

1952

Back when e-mail wasn't killing our ability to write freehand, and there were still a lot of trees to cut down to make paper, postmen played a much bigger role in society. But they were so poorly paid that they decided to go on strike in 1952, when the British were still in power.

As the colonial government hoped a lack of publicity would kill the uprising, the postal workers found themselves an unlikely hero. The 29-year-old Lee Kuan Yew, then a legal assistant at the firm Laycock & Ong, decided to act on behalf of the Postal and Telecommunications Uniform…