Where did the “&” character come from, and why is it here? [closed]
Solution 1:
The character is called the ampersand, and this wikipedia article should be able to give you the info you want:
The ampersand can be traced back to the 1st century A.D. and the Old Roman cursive, in which the letters E and T occasionally were written together to form a ligature (figure 1).
As to what the difference is between "&" and "and", the accepted answer to a post (Courtesy: Kit) asking this question demonstrates this quite succinctly.