Question: I was reading the [Wikipedia on passports](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passport), and there were numerous important dates in passport history, but I didn't find any date when passports became widely used documents for travelling. 

I see passports from late 19th century, and general passports were regulated by League of Nations in 1920s. Based on this my guess is that in 1920 the passports were used by almost all countries of the world.

My question is: **(approximately) when passports and border checks became widespread and commonly used procedures?**

UPDATE: adding more precision: when became passports (or its predecessor) as a travel document standard way to check travellers around the world?

Answer: 
According to [The Guardian](http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2006/nov/17/travelnews), "passports were not generally required for international travel until the first world war". [Wikipedia concurs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Conference_on_Passports_%26_Customs_Formalities_and_Through_Tickets)

This matches accounts I have read of people travelling from London to Moscow without travel documents. During the First World war, they became necessary, and they never stopped being needed.
As for passports, AFAIK, they were introduced first in Russia by Michael I, according to ideas of an early socialist Charles Fourier. 

Absolute majority (peasants) had no passport and could not travel out of the district. Many people had inner passports, that allowed to travel along the whole empire. And some people got passports that could have leave visa in it. 

For example, the greatest Russian poet Pushkin never got such passport, and he had tried many times!

It was absolutely widespread. A person without passport and out of the district where he knew everybody and everybody knew him, had to be catched by police.