English chemist-physicist John Dalton starts using symbols to represent the atoms of different elements.

The heart sign has entered the Oxford English Dictionary as the first graphical symbol to signify a word in the reference work's 127-year history.

Once the sole preserve of tacky tourist T-shirts, the heart symbol – as in I ‘heart’ New York – has become the first graphical entry in the Oxford English Dictionary in its 127-year history.

We just call it the “at” symbol in English but the symbol that looks like @ has a whole host of interesting nicknames in different languages.