A demo of embedded HTML tags and entities coded with a leading underscore.
This works in both ".note" files (here) and the NOTES.py dict (next image).
_<hr style="margin: 24px 0px;">
Normal text: _p_y_thon 3.12

Unescaped tags and entities: <span> and &mdash;

Unescaped and retained: aa<aa> bb"bb" cc'cc' dd&dd

Escaped link tag: _<A HREF="http://google.com\\maps">gmaps_</A> 

Escaped bold tag: _<B>cccc_</B>

Escaped italic tag: _<I>cccc_</I>

Escaped bold+italic tags: _<B>_<I>pypypy_</I>_</B>

Escaped span tags:
    _<SPAN style="color: red">red_</SPAN>, 
    _<SPAN style="background-color: blue;">blue_</SPAN>, 
    _<span style="font-family: times; font-size: 1.5em; color: grey">times_</span>

Escaped style tags: 
    _<style>.wt {color: white}_</style>
    Coding _<span class=wt>note_</span> text with _<span class=wt>style_</span>

Raw emojis and dashes: 👍 – 👏 — 🐍 — ☎️️

Escaped entities:
    _&lt;a_&gt; _&mdash; _&amp; _&nbsp; _&yen; _&#60; _&#x1F44D; _&#128077; _&#x1F40D;

Preescaped underscores: 
    _&#95;<...> _&#95;&...; _&#95;&lt; _&#95;<a> _&#95;&nbsp;

Nested quotes and \ in tags:
    _<A href="https://learning-python.com">double_</A> and 
    _<A href='https://learning-python.com'>single_</A> and
    _<A href='https:\\learning-python.com\thumbspage.html'>backslash_</A>

_<hr>
View the source ".note" file _<A HREF="../a note-file demo.jpg.note">here_</A>.
This image's caption is an extension-less filename.
_<!-- Escaped HTML comments tags work if they don't embed unescaped &gt; -->