Long before iPhones, Blackberries and email, people required message delivery in a timely manner. In ancient times, homing pigeons and horseback riders were used to deliver messages. Pigeon post was the name for the service of using a pigeons natural homing ability to deliver messages. Messenger pigeons and trained birds can be traced back to the Roman military over 2000 years ago.

Before there were modernized couriers, messengers would run miles on foot to their destinations. To this day, there are marathons directly related to actual historical messenger routes. In fact, the term “marathon” came from Pheidippides, a Greek runner, who was sent from Marathon, Greece to Athens, Greece to announce the defeat of the Persians. He ran the entire distance without stopping and collapsed at the end. The official sport of marathon running began at the 1896 Olympics in Athens.

In a more modern era, we have the luxury of technology and immediate courier services, including the older method of bike messengering. Surely, these modernized services are far quicker and easier to guarantee than poor Pheidippides and his exhausted feet.