Java’s root can be traced back to the year 1991 when Sun decided to fund a research project called "Green" so as to design a programming language to be used in intelligent consumer electronic devices.
The new language was originally named as Oak. It was later renamed to Java.
With internet just coming up, the use of Java for programming home appliances was abandoned.
In the year 1994, a Java-enabled web browser called HotJava was released.
In the year 1995 netscape incorporated Java support into its browser.
| RELEASE | DATE | Major Features |
|---|---|---|
| JDK 1.0 | 1996 | First Official Java Version. |
| JDK 1.1 | 1997 | Just In Time Compiler(JIT) or Windows platforms; JDBC; RMI; Inner Classes; Java Beans; |
| J2SE 1.2 | 1998 | Swing; Collections; Java IDL; |
| J2SE 1.3 | 2000 | HotSpot JVM; JavaSound; Java Platform Debugger Architecture; |
| J2SE 1.4 | 2002 | IPv6 Support; Image IO API; Regular Expressions; Java NIO; XML Parser; |
| J2SE 5.0 | 2004 | Generics; Java Annotations; AutoBoxing; Enumerations; ForEach loop; |
| Java SE 6.0 | 2006 | GUI and Web Service Improvements |
| Java SE 7.0 | 2011 | Imprived File IO; Support for new network protocols |
| Java SE 8 | 2014 | Lambda Expressions; New Date and Time API |
| Java SE 9 | 2016 | Money and Currency API |
