[dehrmann]

I can't remember where I read this, but punctuation is placed before the closing quote because it looks nicer, and some of this might be because of typewriting and fixed-width fonts. Two spaces after a sentence is also a carryover from typewriters. Meanwhile, programming culture and its regular grammars is creeping into written language, and we're seeing punctuation follow quotes more often.

It's interested how technologies of the time affect grammar and language.

The opposite story I head was the the Chinese invented movable type before the West, but it's a lot less practical for languages without an alphabet.