Why the Wingdings font exists

Cool. I've always wondered why the Wingdings font was included with every computer I've used since elementary school. It seemed like a fun way to "code" messages, but honestly, the combination of symbols was always quite confusing.

Random, even.

But it turns out the Wingdings font has a practical, albeit outdated, use. It's original use (in dingbats) were a practical way to decorate type on a printing press.