The Missing Link In Our Alphabet; The Ampersand

There used to be 27 letters in our alphabet. Believe it or not but the Ampersand (&) used to follow z.

In the early 1800's school children reciting the ABC's finished with the ampersand.  It wasn't called that then.  Students would finish with "and per se" and over time this morphed into "ampersand".

Who knew the history of "&" was so illustrious?

For more see this source article.