One fine weekend, while trying to "create my site from scratch", I got tired of HTML and decided to play around with the markdown language. It gave me a much "cleaner" authoring experience, and I had a lot of fun playing around with it. So I decided to share my learnings in the hope that it will help you or at least spark your curiosity.
According to our trusty friend, Wikipedia, "Markdown is a lightweight markup language for creating formatted text using a plain-text editor". Markdown is quite popular with people who spend a lot of time creating technical documentation. Its key selling point is readability without the encumbrance of tags and formatting that you'll get in a language like HTML for example.
Here is a summary of the things I learned along the way. For each section, I show a preview of the actual markdown syntax followed by the end result.

Headings

Headings in markdown are created by starting with one or more hash (#) characters. Depending on the heading type, the number of hashes (#) can range between 1 (for H1 or main headings) and 6 (for smaller headings, a.k.a subheadings). The title (markdown shenanigans) is an example of an H1 (#) heading.
To view other headings and see the difference between them, check the list below:

Markdown Syntax:

# Heading 1 (H1) 
## Heading 2 (H2) 
### Heading 3 (H3) 
#### Heading 4 (H4) 
##### Heading 5 (H5) 
###### Heading 6 (H6)

Result:

Heading 1 (H1)

Heading 2 (H2)

Heading 3 (H3)

Heading 4 (H4)

Heading 5 (H5)

Heading 6 (H6)

Making Emphasis with italics or bold…

Emphasizing a word or sentence can be done by adding at least one asterisk (*) at each end of that word or sentence.

*One asterisk at each end italicizes your words.*
**Two asterisks at each end make your words bold** 
***Three asterisks at each end make your words bold and italicized***

One asterisk at each end italicizes your words.
Two asterisks at each end make your words bold
Three asterisks at each end make your words bold and italicized

Creating (Block) Quotes

To create block quotes, you need to indent each line using a right-angle bracket (>) or what mathematicians would call a "greater than" symbol. Additional angle brackets create inner block quotes.

> ***This is a block quote in italics and bold***
>> This is an inner block quote\
I did this just because I can\
and also because I like it
>>> I can even try an inner-inner block quote\
That's how we stars do it
>>>> Now keep your complaints to yourself :p

This is a block quote in italics and bold

This is an inner block quote
I did this just because I can
and also because I like it

I can even try an inner-inner block quote
That's how we stars do it

Now keep your complaints to yourself :p

Now let us try lists:

Creating a random unordered list…

* Apples
* Oranges
* Pears
- One
- Two
- Three
+ First
+ Second
+ Third

Apples
Oranges
Pears

One
Two
Three

First
Second
Third

and now a random ordered list…

1. Number one
2. Number two
3) Number three
4) Number four

Number one
Number two

Number three
Number four

We can also create nested lists like…

* Fruits  
    1. Oranges
    2. Pears
    3. Apples

* Numbers  
    - One
    - Two  
    - Three

Fruits
1. Oranges
2. Pears
3. Apples
Numbers
- One
- Two
- Three

In both cases, we need to indent at least 2 spaces on the next line to create a nested list.

Let's see how a link looks like:

[My first Blog Post](https://www.isrxl.com/i-came-i-blogged-i-conquered/)  
[Check out isrxl blog][id]

[id]: isrxl.com "title"

<https://isrxl.com>

My first Blog Post
Check out isrxl blog

https://isrxl.com

Get a picture

![Nice Picture](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=ghost&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=api-credit)

Nice Picture

How do we write code blocks?

This is probably my favourite use of markdown. When I was still trying to create my web pages from scratch, I was having a hard time displaying code snippets in the way most tech professionals would like when reading a tech article. Once I saw how easy it was in markdown, I quickly dumped HTML/CSS/JS (for now at least).

Code blocks can be created by indenting the line (pressing the tab key) four (4) times in markdown before writing the code

                get-AzResourceGroup
                get-AzContext

            get-AzResourceGroup
            get-AzContext

Another way to create code blocks is by starting a new line with the backtick character three (3) times and optionally following it with the code language. After this, you can write your line/block of code on a new line. Once you are done you can end the code block by using the backtick character three (3) times on a new (and final) line... Like in the code example below:

```powershell
get-service
```

get-service

You can also write code in markdown as inline code. For example,

Inline code: `get-AzContext`, another example is `1 + 5 = 6`.

Inline code: get-AzContext, another example is 1 + 5 = 6.

Closing Remarks

Once you get the hang of it, the markdown language makes authoring technical documentation quite easy and enjoyable.

To create markdown files, you can simply use a plain text editor like notepad or notepad++. If you like to create markdown files and also enjoy the use of some custom plugins like live visualization, Visual Studio Code should be your go-to tool.

If you would also like to play around with markdown, you can check the following sites for good examples:

Getting started with Markdown

Markdown Tutorial

CommonMark Website

Happy "markdowning' or is it Happy "markingdown"?

Enjoy.

Markdown Shenanigans.

My lazy introduction to markdown.