HTML has gone through five major versions since 1991 — each one adding capabilities the web actually needed, not change for its own sake.
Version Timeline
| Version | Year | What It Added |
|---|---|---|
| HTML (1.0) | 1991 | Tim Berners-Lee's original proposal — basic text, links, headings |
| HTML 2.0 | 1995 | First formal standard — forms introduced |
| HTML 3.2 | 1997 | Tables, applets, text-flow around images |
| HTML 4.01 | 1999 | Stylesheets (CSS) support, scripting, improved forms |
| XHTML 1.0 | 2000 | HTML rewritten as strict XML — see HTML vs XHTML |
| HTML5 | 2014 (W3C Recommendation) | Semantic elements, audio/video, canvas, storage — see HTML5 |
Why This History Actually Matters
Understanding why HTML5 introduced tags like <header> and <article> makes more sense once you know what came before: for years, every website used generic <div> tags with class names like class="header" or class="article" — the browser and search engines had no real way to know what those divs actually meant. HTML5's semantic tags fixed that at the language level. See div vs section.
Who Maintains HTML Today
The WHATWG (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group — made up of browser vendors like Google, Mozilla, and Apple) maintains the "HTML Living Standard," which is continuously updated rather than versioned like HTML5, HTML5.1, etc. In practice, developers still say "HTML5" colloquially to mean "modern HTML."
Common Mistakes
- Referring to "HTML6" — there isn't one; HTML is now a continuously evolving living standard, not discrete numbered versions
- Assuming XHTML was a step "forward" from HTML that everyone adopted — it was largely abandoned in favor of HTML5's more forgiving syntax rules
Interview Relevance
Rarely asked in depth, but knowing that HTML5 is a living standard (not a fixed, "finished" version) signals you keep up with how the web platform actually evolves.
Practice Question
Name two HTML5 features that didn't exist in HTML 4.01, and explain what problem each one solved.
