Description #
HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the foundational language used to create and structure content on the web. It defines the layout of webpages using a system of tags and elements that describe headings, paragraphs, links, images, forms, and more.
History #
HTML was first proposed by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 while working at CERN, and the first version appeared in 1991. It was created to allow scientists to share documents easily across the internet.
Over the years, HTML has evolved significantly:
- HTML 4.01 became the standard in 1999
- XHTML was an XML-based variant in the early 2000s
- HTML5, finalized in 2014, modernized the language by adding native support for video, audio, canvas, and semantic elements
Today, HTML5 is the current standard and is maintained by the WHATWG (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group).
Hello World Code #
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Hello</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Hello, World!</p>
</body>
</html>
How to Run #
Open a plain text editor (like Notepad or VS Code)
Save the file as hello.html
Double-click the file or open it in any browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc.)
Key Concepts #
- HTML uses tags inside angle brackets:
<tag> - Tags usually come in pairs: opening
<p>and closing</p> - The
<html>element wraps the entire page - The
<head>contains meta info like the title - The
<body>contains all visible content - The
<!DOCTYPE html>tells the browser it’s HTML5 - HTML is not a programming language — it’s a markup language
- Case-insensitive, but lowercase is standard in HTML5
- HTML is structured hierarchically
- HTML defines semantics, not behavior
Try It Online #
🔗 HTML Online Editor – W3Schools
🔗 CodePen
🔗 JSFiddle
Fun Facts #
HTML is the first thing every web developer learns
You can view any webpage’s HTML with Ctrl+U in most browsers
The original HTML spec had only 18 tags
HTML5 introduced elements like <video>, <audio>, <section>, and <article>
Tim Berners-Lee also invented the World Wide Web!
