How to use jQuery html() function?

When I do this:

$('.myDiv').html("<strong>Hello World</strong>");

The output inside myDiv is literally:

<strong>Hello World</strong>

instead of Hello World simply being bolded. Is there any way to use html inside the html() function or a similar function that actually translates html instead of showing it literally?

EDIT

oops I just realized the above code actually does work. My problem was I am trying to replace the contents of a textarea with html inside and that echoed out the html because that's w开发者_开发知识库hat happens when you put html inside a textarea anyway. So nothing to do with jQuery.

Are you sure you're not using .text() ?

$('.myDiv').html("<strong>Hello World</strong>"); works for me.

See this jsFiddle.

It will display Hello World in bold when the browser actually renders the HTML. You must be using Firebug or a similar tool to inspect the contents of the div you modified. Tools like that don't render the content you are trying to inspect the way the browser would; that's the whole reason you are inspecting the markup. If they did render what you were trying to examine, well, that would just be cruel.