Java was created by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems in . The original goal was a language for interactive television, but it turned out to be too advanced for that market. Sun pivoted and released Java as a general-purpose language.
Today you'll find Java running Android apps, backend servers at companies like Netflix and LinkedIn, financial trading platforms, and embedded systems. It consistently ranks in the top most-used programming languages worldwide.
Why does Java keep showing up? Write your code once, and it runs on any operating system that has a Java Virtual Machine. That promise of portability, combined with strong typing and automatic memory management, keeps Java relevant years after launch.