December 17, 1996
CSS Level 1 becomes a W3C Recommendation
The W3CWorld Wide Web Consortium — the international body that maintains core web standards. published Cascading Style Sheets, Level 1 as an official Recommendation on December 17, 1996 — co-authored by Håkon Wium Lie and Bert Bos.
What it was for
CSS1 let authors set fonts, colors, margins, and spacing in a separate stylesheet while readers could override styles through the cascade. A single linked `.css` file could style an entire site — ending the era of `<font>` tags and presentational HTMLHyperText Markup Language — the standard markup for structuring web pages. attributes in professional publishing.
People
- Håkon Wium Lie — author
- Bert Bos — author
Companies
- W3C
Why it's here
CSS1 was the first stable web standard for separating document structure from presentation.
Why it mattered
It gave browsers and authors a shared vocabulary for layout and typography on the open web.
What it solved
HTMLHyperText Markup Language — the standard markup for structuring web pages. had no standard way to style pages consistently without polluting markup with presentation tags.
Media
- ImageCSS
Javi Aguilar and The CSS-Next Community Group, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Related
- Håkon Wium Lie proposes CSSOctober 10, 1994
- Bert Bos joins CSS developmentJuly 1995
- CSS Level 2 becomes a W3C RecommendationMay 12, 1998