Why UTF-8/16 character encodings?

[Diggory]

On Tuesday, 28 May 2013 at 23:33:47 UTC, Peter Williams wrote:
> On 28/05/13 19:12, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
>> On 2013-05-28 08:00, Manu wrote:
>>
>>> Is there anywhere other than America that doesn't?
>>
>> Canada, Jamaica, other countries in that region?
>>
>
> Last time I looked Canada was in America (which is a continent 
> not a country). :-)
>
> Peter

America isn't a continent, North America is a continent, and 
Canada is in North America :P