The familiar five-digit number was part of a nationwide effort to modernize the mail.

It's very easy to chalk up certain facets of our lives to just being "the way it's always been." From daylight savings time to time zones, most of us don't even give a second thought to the meaning ...

The ZIP code is less like a cold, clinical, ordered list of numbers, and more like a weird overgrown number garden. It started as a way to organize mail after WWII, but now it pops up all over our ...