At 11:44am, 25 years ago today, the smiley was invented:

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 🙁

It’s nice to know the smiley is 25, but it’s also interesting that in 1982 Professor Fahlman thought that the internet was becoming clogged with silliness. I wonder what he thinks of it all now.

There’s a brief history of smileys here. My webcomic contributions to the silliness of the internet update twice a week here.