HTML History Timeline. 1993 to 2011

By Xah Lee. Date: . Last updated: .

This page is a brief overview of timeline of web tech.

1993-06 HTML 1
1993-11 Mosaic 1
1994-12 Netscape 1
1995-08 IE1
1995-09 javascript
1995-11 IE2 (SSL, cookies, VRML)
1995-11 Mosaic 2
1995-11 Cookie
1995-11 HTML 2.0
1996 HTTPS
1996-03 Netscape 2
1996-08 IE3 (tables, frames, JScript, CSS, Java)
1996-08 Netscape 3
1996-12 CSS 1
1997-01 Mosaic 3
1997-01 HTML 3.2
1997-06 Netscape 4
1997-09 IE4 (HTML, CSS)
1997-11 Opera 3 (js)
1997-12 HTML 4.0
1999-03 IE5 (CSS2, XML)
1999-12 HTML 4.01
2000-01 XHTML 1.0
2000-11 Netscape 6
2001-08 IE6
2003-01 Safari 1
2004-11 Firefox 1
2006 CSS 2
2006 XMLHttpRequest
2006-06 Opera 9
2006-10 Firefox 2
2006-10 IE7
2008-06 Firefox 3
2008-11 Chrome
2009-03 IE8
2011 CSS 3
2011 HTML 5
2011-03 Firefox 4
2011-03 IE9

Note: some of the dates are approximate. For example, it's hard to give a date for Cookies, CSS3, HTML 5. (e.g. the date difference could be few years between: date of draft spec, recommended status, public awareness, wide acceptance.) I tend to choose a year the tech is widely used.

For a very well-done interactive graphical illustration of web tech history, using HTML 5 technologies, see: http://evolutionofweb.appspot.com/ .

Reference

JavaScript history