Hot air balloon with a smile
© Leonsbox/Getty Images Plu
Smile! It's World Emoji Day
Most versions of the calendar emoji (📆) use the date 17 July - ever wondered why? It's because 17 July 2000 is the date that Apple first rolled out its iCal app (the icon for which inspired the iPhone calendar emoji). Which is a good reminder that today is World Emoji Day.
If you still type :-D instead of 😀 to express joy, you're a bit old-school, but maybe less so than you think. Even Harvey Ball, who created the iconic yellow ‘smiley’ design (a prototype for 🙂) way back in 1963, was late to the emoji party. A clay pot discovered in Turkey bears the oldest known cartoon of a smiling face, which dates back about 4,000 years. These days, emoji are a virtual second language for the whole world under the Unicode Standard for text encoding, which ensures that text characters from A to Z to Æ to ‽ display similarly across communication platforms and languages.
The underlying code is overseen by the Unicode Consortium but anyone, anywhere can make a case to create an emoji. So if you've got an idea for a 🔥 new one, get over to unicode.org and fill out a proposal.
Related Images
Antique ice yachts on the frozen Hudson River near Astor Point in Barrytown, New York, USA
Wild reindeer swimming across the Kobuk River in Alaska, USA
The Mayflower II replica of the original Mayflower
German Navy tall ship Gorch Fock in waters close to Reykjavík, Iceland
Nasa astronaut works on the International Space Station during a spacewalk in 2006
Carhenge, created by Jim Reinders, in Nebraska, USA
Sailors begin their journey from Chicago to Mackinac Island, Michigan, USA, during the Race to Mackinac
Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta runs until 14 October
Today on Bing
A Loepa oberthuri moth
A flock of sheep in the Gobi Desert
Stink bug eggs on a leaf in Madagascar
