The first emoticons were published on March 30, 1881 by (the now defunct) US satirical magazine Puck.
Some people have said that an even older example of an emoticon can be found within US President, Abraham Lincoln's 1862 speech! (he apparently even wrote the thing himself!)
The first Internet Emoticon was a :-), and was created by computer scientist Scott Fahlman on September 19, 1982, Carnegie Mellon University. He used it to distinguish between serious posts and joke posts on his forum.
[VIA]