Java was created by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995.
Gosling and his team originally developed the language for interactive television, where portability was important. The project was first called Oak, but that name was changed to Java before public release. Java’s central promise was “write once, run anywhere,” supported by the Java Virtual Machine.
Java uses classes and objects and combines automatic memory management with a large standard library. Sun Microsystems announced Java publicly in May 1995, and Java 1.0 followed in 1996. Its browser applets helped popularize it, although applets are now obsolete.
Java remains distinct from JavaScript despite the similar names. JavaScript was developed separately and is primarily associated with web browsers. Java has been used extensively in enterprise systems, Android software, server applications, and large-scale financial technology.