On this occasion, we will tell you about the Brief History of HTML, a programming language for the creation of web pages. We will mention a few of its beginnings, which are not as old as one might think, and how it evolved and improved until it reached HTML version 5.
What is HTML?
HTML is a programming language for the elaboration of web pages based on the use of tags enclosed by angle brackets (<>), which is used to translate the structure and information in the form of text, with the possibility of adding objects like images, videos, etc. Currently, HTML is in recognition by other technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), JavaScript, among others.
Brief History of HTML
HTML Creator
HTML language dates back to the physicist Tim Berners-Lee, a worker at CERN who in late 1989 proposed the HTML language along with the HTTP protocol, whose purpose was to create a means to share information between various “great” physicists of the time who worked all over the world.
HTML Origins
The first document that was formally published in the year 1991 with the name: « HTML Tags « simply text that demonstrates the tags used in HTML. This document is still available for consultation on the web: HTML Tags.
As the document explains, in HTML, opening and closing tags are used (only in some exceptions not) where it opens with the angle brackets and close in the same way with the square brackets but prefixing a (/).
- That is: <Title> </Title>
HTML Versions
- HTML 1. However, it did not state as standard, so HTML 2 is often considered the first version of HTML.
- HTML 2: Presented in 1995, HTML 2 is considered the first version of HTML, which did not support tables and where the explicit declaration of the body, HTML, and head elements is optional.
- HTML 3.2: This version release date was in 1997 thanks to the standardization body called W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), which incorporated the latest advances in web pages such as Java applets and text flowing around the images.
- HTML 4.0 : Launched in 1998. Among its most outstanding novelties are CSS style sheets, an option to include smaller programs and scripts, improving the accessibility of designed pages, complex tables, and improvements in forms.
- HTML 4.01: It came to light in 1999 as a revision and update of the HTML 4.0 version, so it does not include significant developments.
- HTML 5 : Fifth major revision of the basic language of the World Wide Web, which specifies two variants of HTML syntax: the classic HTML (text / Html), and the variant known as HTML5 and an XHTML variant known as XHTML5 syntax. This new standard is not yet widely used, but its potential is much greater than the previous versions, which includes interesting improvements such as new elements and labels.