Postage stamps and postal history of Brazil Postage stamps and postal history of Brazil Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world. It was a colony of Portugal from 1500 until 1815. Brazil was the second country in the world, after Great Britain, to issue postage stamps valid within the entire country (as opposed to a local issue). Like Great Britain's first stamps, the design does not include the country name. The first stamps of Brazil were issued on 1 August 1843 and are known as "Bull's Eyes" due to their distinctive appearance. On 1 July 1844 a new series was issued which is known as
Postage stamps of the Soviet Union Postage stamps of the Soviet Union Stamps of the Soviet Union were issued in the period 1923 to 1991. They were labeled with the inscription ("Post of the USSR"). In the thematics, Soviet stamps reflected to a large extent the history, politics, economics and culture of this world's first socialist state. Notable designers of Soviet postage stamps were Ivan Dubasov (who designed the , the first stamps portraying Vladimir Lenin in 1924) and . By the mid 1970s, over 4,000 stamps came out in the USSR. In 1970, the "Catalogue of Postage Stamps of the USSR, 1918–1969" was published in