A page about HTML's history, written in HTML, for HTML Day .
Origins
HTML was created to solve a specific problem: sharing documents between researchers. In 1989 CERN researcher Tim Berners-Lee wanted physicists around the world to cross-reference each other's papers without mailing printouts. Linking the documents themselves, so a reader could jump from one claim to supporting data, turned out to matter more than the documents alone.
He had explored a similar idea in 1980 as a CERN contractor, building a prototype called ENQUIRE for this kind of cross-referencing. The first public description of HTML appeared in late 1991, in a document plainly titled "HTML Tags." It listed eighteen elements[1], almost all borrowed from CERN's in-house documentation format, SGMLguid. The hyperlink tag was the only new piece.
None of it was locked down. CERN agreed to release the underlying code royalty-free, forever[2], a decision announced in April 1993 that many consider crucial to the web's growth. Berners-Lee later said: it would probably not have taken off under any other terms.
1989 ●---- proposal
1990 ●---- browser + server
1991 ●---- HTML Tags
1993 ●---- royalty-free
The first website, and the first photo
The world's first website went live at info.cern.ch in 1991. CERN still keeps a restored copy online as a piece of digital heritage, plain text and links, nothing else.
The first photograph ever published on the web wasn't a diagram or a data plot. In 1992 Berners-Lee asked a member of Les Horribles Cernettes, an all-female parody pop group formed by CERN employees, for a scanned photo. She provided one.[6]
In the mid-1990s, browser makers Netscape and Microsoft added new tags without waiting for standards, shaping the look of personal websites for a few years.
Blink
Credited to Lou Montulli, who wrote the Lynx browser before joining Netscape in 1994, blink shipped in Netscape Navigator and made text flash on and off. It is said the idea was conceived in a bar.
Why it died
It was fun for about a year, on "under construction" pages and headlines, and then some people thought it wasn't.
Accessibility
Flashing text caused problems for people with visual impairments, cognitive disabilities, and epilepsy.[9] It was pulled from the spec by HTML 4.0.[3]
The document-formatting standard behind HTML's tag syntax. CERN used its own dialect, SGMLguid.
W3C
The standards body Berners-Lee founded in 1994 to steward the web's specifications.
WHATWG
The browser-vendor group that became sole publisher of the HTML standard in 2019.
Living standard
A spec with no final version number, revised continuously instead of released in numbered editions.
Standardization saga
HTML wasn't a formal standard for years. It was Berners-Lee's own spec, then a pile of competing drafts, including Dave Raggett's 1993 "HTML+," until the IETF's HTML Working Group published HTML 2.0 in 1995 as the first version meant to be treated as one.
"HTML Tags," the first public description, 18 elements
Dave Raggett drafts "HTML+"
IETF publishes HTML 2.0, the first standards-track spec
W3C Recommendation: HTML 3.2
W3C Recommendation: HTML 4.01
W3C Recommendation: XHTML 1.0
W3C Recommendation: HTML5
WHATWG becomes sole publisher of the standard
Present
No version number. Just a living standard, updated as it goes.
HTML Day
HTML Day is not a corporate campaign. It was started in 2019 by Laurel Schwulst and Elliott Cost as HTML Energy, and it has grown into freewrite meetups worldwide where people gather to write raw markup for a few hours.
"We're not affiliated with any company or organization."
Three ways to mark the day:
Open a plain text editor.
Write HTML with nothing generating it for you.
Save it, open it in a browser, and show someone.
Try it
The only tools needed are a text editor and a browser. Built-in options include: Windows (Notepad), macOS (TextEdit), Linux (gedit, nano, vim). Or use code editors like Gram, Sublime Text, or Micro. Any plain text editor works.
<!-- Document type declaration -->
<!DOCTYPE html>
<!-- Root element with language attribute -->
<html lang="en">
<!-- Head section contains metadata -->
<head>
<!-- Character encoding for proper text display -->
<meta charset="utf-8">
<!-- Viewport for responsive design -->
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<!-- Page title shown in browser tab -->
<title>My First HTML Page</title>
</head>
<!-- Body section contains visible content -->
<body>
<!-- Heading element -->
<h1>Hello, World!</h1>
<!-- Paragraph element -->
<p>Welcome to my webpage, <var>yourName</var>!</p>
<!-- Link element -->
<a href="https://example.com">Visit Example</a>
</body>
</html>
Save that as index.html, open it in a browser, and it works. No build step or frameworks needed. HyperTextMarkupLanguage is best when typed by hand.
HTML facts
HTML's first public spec, "HTML Tags" (1991), listed just 18 elements.
The first photo on the web was of a CERN parody pop group, not a physics diagram.
Netscape's blink and Microsoft's marquee defined two rival browsers for a few years in the 1990s.
HTML5 has no final version number. WHATWG maintains it as a living standard that keeps updating.
HTML Day started in 2019, founded by two people, with no corporate sponsor behind it.
Certificate of Attendance
This certifies that you spent part of reading about angle brackets. No further action required.
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