First digital emoticon

The first ever 'smiley' was written by Scott Fahlman (USA) of Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA, on 19 September 1982. In a message on a bulletin board system, he proposed the use of :-) and :-( in emails, to signify the emotional context of the message and prevent misunderstandings in email communication. The original posting reads:

19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-)
From: Scott E Fahlman

I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:

:-)

Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use

:-(

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NB The first printed use of typographical marks to denote emotion dates back to 30 March 1881 and the publication of Puck magazine (USA) issue 212, p.65. Four facial expressions were created using vertically typeset characters: joy, melancholy, indifference and astonishment.