Key takeaways
– HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the standard markup language used to structure content on the World Wide Web.
– HTML uses tags (markup) to tell web browsers how to render text, images, links, forms and other content.
– HTML works alongside Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for presentation and JavaScript for behavior to create modern, interactive web pages.
– HTML has evolved (HTML5 and the HTML Living Standard) and continues to gain new features and APIs for richer web applications.
– Tim Berners‑Lee proposed and implemented the first HTML in 1989–1990 while at CERN.
In-depth look at HTML functionality
HTML is not a programming language but a markup language: it annotates content with tags enclosed in angle brackets (for example
, , ). A browser reads an HTML file and translates the tags and content into a rendered web page.
Core responsibilities of HTML:
– Structure: define headings, paragraphs, lists, sections and document outline using semantic tags (for example