Fun With Ligatures

Well here's something that blew me away, linguistically speaking. I had always assumed that the ubiquitous "and sign" - I'm referring to the "&" - was just a random scribble that had somehow weaseled its way into modern orthography. READER, THIS IS NOT SO!!
Before I continue, I should say that tonight Ruth told me that the sign in question is called an ampersand, and that word has a fascinating origin in itself. But then I found out that it is actually a combination of letters (ligature:) and those letters are "et" - Latin, of course, for "and." Take a look!

C'est groovy, non?