Aki points us to this fun 1990s-style webpage from Jeff Miller. Last year we featured his page on word oddities and other trivia. You might also enjoy his page, Earliest Uses of Various Mathematical Symbols.
Here’s an example:
The equal symbol (=) was first used by Robert Recorde (c. 1510-1558) in 1557 in The Whetstone of Witte. He wrote, “I will sette as I doe often in woorke use, a paire of parralles, or Gemowe lines of one lengthe, thus : ==, bicause noe 2, thynges, can be moare equalle.” Recorde used an elongated form of the present symbol. He proposed no other algebraic symbol (Cajori vol. 1, page 164).
Here is an image of the page of The Whetstone of Witte on which the equal sign is introduced.
The equal symbol did not appear in print again until 1618, when it appeared in an anonymous Appendix, very probably due to Oughtred, printed in Edward Wright’s English translation of Napier’s Descriptio. It reappeared 1631, when it was used by Thomas Harriot and William Oughtred (Cajori vol. 1, page 298).
Cajori states (vol. 1, page 126):
A manuscript, kept in the Library of the University of Bologna, contains data regarding the sign of equality (=). These data have been communicated to me by Professor E. Bortolotti and tend to show that (=) as a sign of equality was developed at Bologna independently of Robert Recorde and perhaps earlier.
Cajori elsewhere writes that the manuscript was probably written between 1550 and 1568.
Lots more great examples at the above link.