History of Java Programming Language

Java is a programming language and environment invented by James Gosling and others in 1994. Java was originaly named Oak and was developed as a part of the Green project at the Sun Company. The writing of Java began in December of 1990. Patrick Naughton, Mike Sheridan, and James Gosling and were trying to figure out the "next wave" in computing.
Sun formally announced Java and HotJava at SunWorld `95. Soon after, Netscape Inc. announced that it would incorporate Java support in their browser. This was a great triumph for Java since it was now supported by the most popular browser in the world. Later, Microsoft also announced that they would support Java in their Internet Explorer web browser, further solidifying Java's role in the World Wide Web.
Java 1.0 was the first version. Java 1.1 added important changes to user interface management, and many important new classes were added (JDBC, JavaBeans, ...). Java 2 was released at the end of 1998 with important additions to many different parts of Java, but especially with an improved graphical user interface, and many additional packages.
Versions:
Java 1.0 - 212 classes in 8 packages, released May 1996
Java 1.1 - 503 classes in 23 packages, released Feb 1997
Java 1.2/2.0 - 1,520 classes in 59 packages, released Dec 1998
Java 5.0 - 3562 classes in 166 packages.