Things you should know it about HTML

Historical Perspective

In the 1940s, global industry and science shifted onto a military footing, and the role of the scientist changed radically. Before the war, military leaders relied on weapons of the past, viewing engineers merely as "useful dreamers." However, the invention of radar, penicillin, and the atomic bomb overturned this perspective, proving that the future is built in laboratories.

One of the chief architects of this new world order was Vannevar Bush. His contribution to the development of science and digital technology itself can hardly be overstated; he is widely considered one of the first to lay the cornerstone of the digital industry and outline a vision for how science should evolve in the post-war era. His essay «As We May Think» published in 1945 in The Atlantic Monthly, can be viewed as a manifesto that provided a clear vector of development for future generations of researchers and scientists. The concept of the hypothetical Memex device described by Bush essentially predicted the advent of personal computers and modern databases.

It took another twenty years for Bush’s theoretical blueprints to be carried forward. In 1965 Ted Nelson coined the terms "hypertext" and "hypermedia."

By "hypertext", I mean non-sequential writing — text that branches and allows the reader to make choices. It is a body of material interconnected in ways so complex that it cannot be conveniently presented on paper.

Between the theoretical works of the '60s and the boom of hypertext popularity in the '80s, a period of silence prevailed. But in 1987, the word "hypertext" suddenly echoed everywhere. The key catalyst was the release of Apple's HyperCard, where Bill Atkinson applied the metaphor of a "stack of cards," making the creation of interactive, linked documents accessible to the general public.

In 1989, CERN employees Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau worked on an idea that would allow any device to interface with a single, universal information system. In March of that year, Tim Berners-Lee submitted an official proposal to CERN management. By 1992, they succeeded in bringing this idea to life, creating the first working version of the World Wide Web, along with the initial outlines of HTML. These events marked the starting point of a new digital era.

Timeline and Evolution of Standards

The Origins (1991 — 1993)

The first official version, HTML 1.0, never actually existed as an approved, standalone standard because the language evolved too rapidly. However, October 1991 is considered the key baseline when Tim Berners-Lee first publicly shared a document titled «HTML tags» on the network, which described just 18 tags.

This was a revolution despite severe limitations, as it supported only static content without interactivity, images, or complex structure. Yet, it was precisely HTML's simplicity that allowed it to spread rapidly across the globe. Later, in June 1993, Tim Berners-Lee alongside Dan Connolly published the «first official draft» of the specification under the auspices of the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force).

HTML 2.0 (1995)

Released in November 1995, HTML 2.0 became the first formally ratified standard and a major step forward. To coordinate its development, the IETF working group had been established a year prior. The new specification introduced interactive elements that allowed users to engage with websites.

In August of the same year, Microsoft released Internet Explorer, significantly accelerating the adoption of the Internet and establishing HTML as the core element of this global ecosystem.

The Founding of W3C and the Advent of CSS (1994 — 1996)

Recognizing the need for global standardization, Tim Berners-Lee founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in 1994, backed by leading institutions: MIT, INRIA and CERN. The primary objectives of the W3C were:

• Developing and ensuring the long-term growth of the Web
• Establishing unified, open protocols and standards.
• Supporting innovation, technological interoperability, and network decentralization.

By late 1996, the W3C consortium approved the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) specification. Over time, HTML had become heavily overloaded because it was simultaneously handling both page content and visual presentation. Shifting design functions to CSS allowed for a complete separation of content from presentation. This cleaned up HTML code, reduced page weight, and drastically simplified website maintenance and updates.

HTML 3.2 (1997)

Released in January 1997, HTML 3.2 was the first specification published entirely under the editorial control of the W3C consortium. It aimed to tame the chaos of the first "browser wars" and standardize elements that developers were already actively using in practice, such as tables and text-wrapping around images.

HTML 4.01 (1999)

HTML 4.0, and its final revision HTML 4.01 released on December 24, 1999, brought much-needed order to the web. Instead of introducing new visual effects, the W3C officially deprecated old presentation tags and firmly cemented CSS as the primary tool for design.

The major breakthroughs of HTML 4 were internationalization (via the lang attribute) and robust Accessibility features for people with disabilities, also was improved keyboard navigation — which elevated web development to a professional level.

The XHTML Crisis and the Creation of WHATWG (2000 — 2004)

On January 26, 2000, the XHTML 1.0 specification was released. The core concept was to shift the web onto the tracks of XML's strict syntactic discipline while retaining HTML 4 tags. The new standard demanded flawless code: all tags had to be closed, tag names had to be lowercase, and attributes required quotation marks. If there was even a minor syntax error, the page simply wouldn't render.

This "zero-tolerance" approach proved too rigid for the real-world web, where most sites were built by hobbyists writing flawed code. When the W3C attempted to make the next version (XHTML 2.0) even stricter and completely stripped it of backward compatibility, the community rebelled.

Consequently, in 2004, developers from Apple, Mozilla and Opera formed an independent working group called Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group. They pivoted toward a pragmatic approach to technology, focusing on backward compatibility and the actual requirements of building web applications.

Era of HTML5 (2014)

Following a prolonged standoff and the W3C's eventual recognition that the XHTML path was a dead end, WHATWG's ideas became the foundation for the new standard. HTML 5.0 was officially presented by the W3C consortium in October 2014 after nearly a decade of development. Its launch ushered in the era of the "Rich Web."

Key Features:

• Native Multimedia: The introduction of video and audio tags eliminated the need for third-party plugins, like Adobe Flash.
• Semantic Tags: Elements like header, footer, article and section made the code structure clear to search engine crawlers and screen readers.
• Return to Flexibility: Moving away from XHTML's strict constraints in favor of a simpler, more forgiving syntax.
• Mobile Ecosystem: Integration of responsive images, touch input support, and new form input types optimized for smartphones.

HTML Living Standard (2019 — Present)

The historical rift ended in 2019 when the W3C and WHATWG signed an official agreement. Under this pact, WHATWG became the sole governing body responsible for maintaining HTML.

Since then, the entire industry has operated under the HTML Living Standard. The language is no longer divided into version numbers. Instead, the standard updates continuously in small increments based on real-world browser implementations. Crucially, it guarantees ironclad backward compatibility: websites written according to the rules of the 1990s will still render correctly in browsers today.

Summary

HTML has come a long way from a simple tool designed for sharing scientific papers at CERN to the foundational language of the global digital ecosystem. No matter how complex or interactive a modern web application may be, at its absolute core, it will always rely on that same simple, robust, and universally understood HyperText Markup Language.