The History of the @ Symbol

Curiosity gets the best out of me, trouble follows easily too. Ever wonder how the @ symbol came to be? The rarely used key on the typewriter, the forgotten character has become the very symbol of modern electronic communication today. Smithsonian.com has an interesting article on the now famous symbol. Where would Twitter be without both # and @ symbols?

The first documented use was in 1536, in a letter by Francesco Lapi, a Florentine merchant, who used @ to denote units of wine called amphorae, which were shipped in large clay jars.