# Markdown Introduction
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**Markdown** is a lightweight markup language for creating formatted text using a plain-text
editor. John Gruber and Aaron Swartz created Markdown in 2004 as a markup language that is
appealing to human readers in its source code form.
1. Build a blog through a ton of challenges and share it on Dev.to
2. Add to a GitHub Repo for all to see
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## Article Example

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## Why?
**Markdown** is used for shorthand html for several types of applications.
- README files
- Blogs
- Forums
- Documentation
- Messaging