Puzzling difference between lists and tuples

[William Pearson]

I am puzzled by the reason for this difference between lists and tuples.

A list of with multiple strings can be reduced to a list with one string with the expected results:

for n in ['first','second']:
    print n

for n in ['first']:
    print n

The first loop prints "first", "second", and the second prints "first".

====

This is not true for a tuple:

for n in ('first','second'):
    print n

for n in ('first'):
    print n


prints "first", "second" in the first case, but "f","i","r","s","t" in the second.

Where is this inconsistency explained?