Odd can't use "<" in table

Hi Guys,
I was coding something today and I found this strange thing.
If you try and put the less than "<" into a table cell it won't let you. You need to replace it with "&lt;" but the ">" works just fine.

Example:
try and put this into a table cell "blah1<blah2" it will give you "blah1"
To get "blah1<blah2" you need to put "blah1&lt;blah2"

There's no problem doing this in a textbox, I didn't try a label but I belive it would work.

Anyone understand this? I know that &lt; is the "<" but why can't you just use "<"?

The problem with doing this, is that you really shouldn't do this!

At the end of the day, the HTML standard uses both the < and > to define the elements within the standard. If you use a < or a > enywhere else in your code, you run the risk of breaking the elements of your HTML page.

If you need to output a < or a > within an HTML element on your page, then you should use the &lt; or &gt;

Gary