The backstory of the M&M can be traced to the Spanish American War. On October 1, 1898, a coalition of diplomats met in Paris to negotiate a peace treaty between the U.S. and Spain, leading to a sugar rush across America’s new colonial territories. And eventually… domino-ing us into the modern day sex icon that is the green M&M.

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Smiling poop. Zombie lady. High-fiving squid. Emojis cover a huge spectrum of human expression. But did you ever wonder where they came from? On September 19, 1982, a computer scientist, concerned his jokes weren’t landing in a university chatroom, used the first emoticon; colon, minus sign, parenthesis. The simple smiley face set the stage for a revolution in online communication.