Java's history dates back to the early 1990s when a team of Sun Microsystems developers, led by James Gosling, started working on a new programming language that would enable interactive television devices to communicate with each other. The project was called "Green Project" and the language was initially called "Oak" after a tree outside Gosling's office.

The team soon realized that Oak had much wider applicability beyond interactive television and renamed it to "Java". In 1995, Sun Microsystems released the first version of Java, which was primarily designed for use in web browsers. It included a set of libraries, a compiler, and a virtual machine that allowed Java code to run on any platform that had a JVM installed.

Java's popularity grew rapidly in the late 1990s and early 2000s, as it was adopted by large organizations and used for developing a wide range of applications. In 2006, Sun Microsystems released the Java SE 6 platform, which included significant improvements to the language and its APIs.

In 2009, Sun Microsystems was acquired by Oracle Corporation, which became the steward of the Java platform. Oracle has continued to develop and improve Java, releasing new versions of the language and associated technologies on a regular basis.

Today, Java is one of the most widely used programming languages in the world, with a large and active community of developers who contribute to its ongoing development and improvement. Its portability, scalability, and security features have made it a popular choice for developing enterprise applications, web applications, mobile applications, and games.

1. James Gosling, Mike Sheridan, and Patrick Naughton initiated the Java language project in June 1991. The small team of sun engineers called Green Team.
2. Originally designed for small, embedded systems in electronic appliances like set-top boxes.
3. Firstly, it was called "Green talk" and file extension was .gt.
4. After that, it was called Oak and was developed as a part of the Green project.
5. Then in 1995, Oak was renamed as "Java".

Java Releases

1. Java Versions 1.0 and 1.1 was released in the year 1996 for Linux, Solaris, Mac, and Windows.
2. Java version 1.2 (Commonly called java 2) was released in the year 1998.
3. Java Version 1.3 codename Kestrel was released in the year 2000.
4. Java Version 1.4 codename Merlin was released in the year 2002.
5. Java Version 1.5/Java SE 5 codename ‘Tiger’ was released in the year 2004.
6. Java Version 1.6/Java SE 6 Codename ‘Mustang’ was released in the year 2006.
7. Java Version 1.7/Java SE 7 Codename ‘Dolphin’ was released in the year 2011.
8. Java Version 1.8/Java SE 8 was released the year 2015.
9. Java Version 1.9/Java SE 9 was released in September 2017.
10. Java Version 1.10/Java SE 10 was released on March 2018.
11. Java Version 1.11/Java SE 11 was released in September 2018.
12. Java Version 1.12/Java SE 12 will be released on March 2019.