History of JAVA

Java is a general-purpose, concurrent, class-based, object-oriented computer programming language that is specifically designed to have as few implementation dependencies as 
 possible.
 

Java code that can run on one platform does not need to be recompiled to run on another.

Java applications are typically compiled to byte code (class file) that can run on any Java virtual machine (JVM) regardless of computer architecture.

James Gosling, Mike Sheridan, and Patrick
Naughton initiated the Java language project
 in June 1991. Java was originally designed for interactive television, but it was too advanced for the digital cable television industry at the time. The language was initially called Oak after an oak tree that stood outside Gosling's office. It went by the name Green later, and was later renamed Java, from Java coffee, said to be consumed in large quantities by the language's creators. Gosling aimed to implement a virtual machine and a language that had a familiar C/C++ style of notation.

Sun Microsystems released the first public implementation as Java 1.0 in 1995. It promised "Write Once, Run Anywhere" (WORA), providing no-cost run-times on popular platforms.

Major web browsers soon incorporated the ability to run Java applets within web pages, and Java quickly became popular.

In 1997, Sun Microsystems approached the ISO/IEC JTC1 standards body and later the Ecma International to formalize Java, but it soon withdrew from the process.

On November 13, 2006, Sun released much of Java as free and open source software, (FOSS), under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). On May 8, 2007, Sun finished the process, making all of Java's core code available under free software/open-source distribution terms, aside from a small portion of code to which Sun did not hold the copyright.

Sun's vice-president Rich Green said that Sun's ideal role with regards to Java was as an"evangelist." 

Following Oracle Corporation's acquisition of Sun Microsystems in 2009–2010, Oracle has described itself as the "steward of Java technology with a relentless commitment to fostering a community of participation and transparency". 

This did not hold Oracle, however, from filing a lawsuit against Google shortly after that for using Java inside the Android SDK. 

Java software runs on laptops to data centers,game consoles to scientific supercomputers. There are 930 million Java Runtime Environment downloads each year and 3 billion mobile phones run Java.

On April 2, 2010, James Gosling resigned from Oracle.
Oracle Corporation is the current owner of the official implementation of the Java SE platform, following their acquisition of Sun Micro systems on January 27, 2010. 

This implementation is based on the original implementation of Java by Sun. The Oracle implementation is available for Mac OS X, Windows and Solaris

Major release versions of Java, along with their release dates:

• JDK 1.0 (January 21, 1996)
• JDK 1.1 (February 19, 1997)
• J2SE 1.2 (December 8, 1998)
• J2SE 1.3 (May 8, 2000)
• J2SE 1.4 (February 6, 2002)
• J2SE 5.0 (September 30, 2004)
• Java SE 6 (December 11, 2006)
• Java SE 7 (July 28, 2011)