What is HTML?

Origin of HTML

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, a physicist at CERN, wanted an easy way to share information globally. He proposed and created the first web page in 1999, and released HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) in 1991 alongside the first web browser and server.

What Is HTML?

• Hypertext: Text containing links to other text.
• Markup: Tags and elements that structure a document.
• Files end with a .html suffix (e.g., index.html is often the homepage).

HTML Tags vs. Elements

• Opening tag: <p>
• Closing tag: </p>
• Content goes between tags (e.g., <p>Your paragraph here.</p>).
• Nested elements: You can put an <em> inside a <p> to italicize text.
• Self-closing elements: Tags like <br> insert a line break without a closing tag (or can be written <br/>).

HTML Specification & Standards

The rules and structure of tags and elements are defined by the HTML specification, maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Whenever it’s updated, a new HTML version is standardized—the current one is HTML 5.