1801--Title of surveyor changed to Special Agent.

1830--Office of Instructions and Mail Depredations was established as the investigative branch of the Post Office Department.

1853--The number of Special Agents had grown to 18, assigned to specific territories. Their duties included reporting on the condition of stagecoaches, steamboats, railroads, and horses used to transport mail, visiting mail distributing offices and examining postal accounts.

1872--Congress enacted the Mail Fraud Statute to combat a post-Civil War outbreak of swindles using the mails.

1880--Congress established the title of Chief Postal Inspector and renamed Special Agents "Inspectors."

1916--The last known stage-coach robbery in the U.S. was solved by Postal Inspectors, who apprehended the bandits within five days of the crime.

1926--Postal Inspectors successfully concluded a 3-1/2 year, worldwide manhunt for three train bandits known as the D'Autremont brothers. The brothers killed four men and blew up a mail car which they thought was carrying half a million dollars in gold.

1937--When the nation's $15.5 billion gold reserve was transferred from New York to Fort Knox, Postal Inspectors planned the movement and protection of the bullion, which was sent by registered mail. The transfer required 500 rail cars, took several years, and was completed without a mishap.

1940--The first of five Postal Inspection Service Crime Laboratories was established.

1941--Postal Inspectors organized the mail system for the military during World War II. The system was so efficient that front-line troops took mail delivery as normal procedure.

1957--Audit responsibility of the Post Office Department was transferred from the Bureau of Finance to the bureau of the Chief Postal Inspector.

1958--Owners of the Hope Diamond sent the priceless jewel to the Smithsonian Institution by U.S. Mail. Postal Inspectors ensured that the exhibit arrived safely at its destination.

1971--With the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, the Bureau of the Chief Postal Inspector became the Postal Inspection Service. A uniformed Security Force was added to assist in carrying out the Inspection Service's mission. The Postal Inspection Service became one of the first federal law enforcement agencies to admit women into its ranks.

1972--Postal Inspectors and forensic scientists proved that a hand-written note giving Clifford Irving exclusive rights to write Howard Hughes biography was a fraud. The note, allegedly written by the reclusive billionaire himself, was used in an almost successful attempt to defraud two major publishing companies of several hundred thousand dollars. The Postal Inspection Service provided evidence that helped to convict Irving.

1984--The passage of the Child Protection Act gave Postal Inspectors the ability to focus not only on the peddlers of child pornography, but also to expand their enforcement efforts to include those who knowingly purchase and receive child pornography through the mails.

1987--Investigations by Postal Inspectors revealed widespread white-collar crimes on Wall Street, including insider trading and a massive check kiting scheme.

1991--The Postal Inspection Service broke up a worldwide art fraud ring that marketed bogus paintings purported to be by such renowned artists as Salvador Dali, Joan Miro and Pablo Picasso.

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