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It is believed the early Chinese were the first to send what could be called a greeting card - they exchaned messages of a good will to celebrate a New Year. Evidence also shows that ancient Egyptians wrote greetings on papyrus scrolls.

The next stop on the timeline is around 1400 when the Germans used woodcuts to print New Year's wishes. In the early or mid 1400s Europeans exchanged handmade paper greetings for Valentine's Day. The British Museum has a Valentine from the 1400s that is the oldest known greeting card in existence.

The introduction of the postage stamp in 1840 helped the popularity of the greeting card. What was once relatively expensive, hand made, and personally-delivered gift became an effective and affordable means of personal communication. Another factor promoting advancement was the improvement of printing methods. Mass production didn't mean the end of the elaborate greeting card, however. The Victorian era saw some very ornate and intricate designs.

John Calcott Horsley was commissioned in 1843 to design the first published Christmas card. A young lady from Massachusetts, Esther Howland, was the first regular publisher of valentines in the United States. She started in 1849 with handmade valentines, often using real lace and ribbon, and went on to found a successful publishing company with elaborately decorated cards as a specialty.

The person generally credited with the beginning of America's greeting card industry is Louis Prang, a German immigrant. He started a lithography business near Boston in 1856 and soon his works were known as the best around.

Within ten years of founding his firm, he had perfected the color lithographic process to a point where his reproductions of great paintings surpassed those of other graphic arts craftsmen in both the U.S. and Great Britain. In the early 1870s, Prang began publishing deluxe editions of Christmas cards, which found a ready market in England. In 1875, he introduced the first complete line of Christmas cards to the American public.

Technical developments like color lithography in 1930 propelled the manufactured greeting card industry forward. Humorous greeting cards, known as studio cards, became popular in the late 1940s and 1950s.

Humor in American greeting cards became more prominent in the 1950s with the introduction of the studio card – a long card with a short punch line. Cards for a wide range of events and holidays as well as "non-occasion" cards showed up in the 1980s.

Sending a greeting card is one of those simple gestures that reminds people someone is thinking about them. Making someone else feel special can also have the effect of making the sender feel good also. With all of the stress in people's lives today, that small oasis of contentment is something we need now more than ever.