This is Bird Note. Today, July 17th is World Emoji Day, because that's the date on the

little calendar emoji. These cartoon graphics can show everything from smiley faces and

hand gestures to plants, hearts, and, of course,

birds. In fact, some of those bird emoji were among the very first emoji ever made.

Our modern emoji traced their roots to the 80s and 90s when PDAs and brick-shaped cell phones

were first taking off. For most of the world, these devices could only

display pixelated letters and numbers on black and gray screens. But in Japan, several electronics

companies also designed small digital icons that users could type and share in texts. It's difficult

to pin down the first true emoji. but two of the earliest adopters both included

a bird in their emoji sets. In 1988, the Sharp Corporation published theirs with a rooster from

the Chinese zodiac and added a generic bird a few years later. In 1997, the company SoftBank

created its own set that included a very cute penguin.

About a decade later, SoftBank partnered with Apple to launch the iPhone in Japan, complete with an emoji keyboard.

That feature would go on to become standard on mobile devices worldwide, and now offers more than a dozen bird-related emoji

to choose from. So on this World emoji Day, let's celebrate the penguin, rooster, and all our

emoji for the icons they are. For Bird Note, I'm Ariana Rimmel.