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Recently, I was getting my emoji on (as I do) and noticed that every single calendar-related emoji, including the calendar and tear-off calendar on my iPhone, uses the date July 17. “Whaaaaaat is that about?” I asked myself, as I immediately plugged the question in to Google (as I do).
Here’s the (mind-blowing) answer: July 17, 2002 is the date that (nerd alert!) iCal for Mac was first announced at MacWorld Expo in 2002 and it’s also World Emoji Day. Yas–it’s because July 17 is a very, very special day for Apple’s calendar squad so they wanted to commemorate it always with the emoji.
Want your mind to be blown even further? Calendar emoji dates vary from Apple to Microsoft to Google, Twitter, Samsung, etc., based off the significant dates for each platform.
So, for example, Twitter’s previously showed July 15–Twitter’s launch date–but later changed to March 21–Twitter’s founding date because they didn’t want to be so close to Apple’s day.
Google’s Android version uses the number 12, but nobody knows why.
Okay, that’s enough geeking out for now–please go back to your regularly scheduled style programming!
