Quotation marks vs punctuation?

Question

1. When did British printers kick the habit of putting commas and full stops that do not belong to a quotation inside quotation marks? (U.S. and Canada still stick to this policy that forces otherwise unconfusing matter to become confusing, but some professional organisations are known dissidents.)
2. When did British printers start to use primarily single quotations and what is the scope?

Answer 1

British punctuation has always been like that. When did Americans start putting punctuation inside quotations when the punctuation doesn't belong to the quotation? That's always seemed weird to me!

Answer 2

I dunno the answer to either, but it really burns my cookies. I can't read an issue of Cosmo without getting irked by little things like that. Do people really call them full stops instead of periods still? That's kinda neat.

Answer 3

Hm...I guess it´s because they want to save some space? No idea.