James Gosling and his team first developed Java at Sun Microsystems (now owned by Oracle) in the early 1990s. The language was designed with the goal of creating a platform-independent programming language that could be used for developing interactive television and other consumer electronic devices.
Java's first public release was in 1995, and it quickly gained popularity as a language for developing web-based applications. Today, Java is widely used for developing various applications, including web, mobile, desktop, and enterprise software.