PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) has come a long way since its humble beginnings as a simple tool for creating personal homepages. Originally created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994, PHP was designed to help Lerdorf manage his personal website. However, it wasn’t until 1995 when Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski rewrote PHP’s core that it became a powerful scripting language. This new version, known as PHP/FI (Personal Home Page/Forms Interpreter), allowed for the creation of dynamic web pages and quickly gained popularity among web developers. In 1997, PHP received a major update with the release of version 3, which introduced a modular architecture and support for external libraries. This made it easier for developers to extend and customize PHP for their specific needs. As the internet continued to grow and businesses started to establish an online presence, the demand for more robust and versatile web development tools also increased. This led to the release of PHP 4 in 2000, which saw significant improvements in performance and added support for object-oriented programming. PHP 4 also introduced the Zend Engine, a powerful scripting engine that made PHP more stable and secure. With the release of PHP 5 in 2004, the language underwent a major transformation. It became a fully object-oriented programming language, with support for advanced features such as interfaces, exceptions, and namespaces. This version also saw the introduction of the Zend Engine 2, which improved performance and added support for new data types and a more robust object model. The latest version of PHP, PHP 7, was released in 2015 and brought significant improvements in terms of speed and memory usage. It also introduced new features like scalar type declarations, anonymous classes, and return type declarations. With each new release, PHP continues to evolve and adapt to the changing needs of the web development community. It has become one of the most popular programming languages, powering over 79% of all websites on the internet. From its humble beginnings as a personal homepage tool, PHP has grown into a versatile and powerful language used for a wide range of applications, from simple websites to complex enterprise solutions. Its evolution is a testament to the dedication and innovation of its developers and the ever-changing landscape of the internet.