PHP, or Hypertext Preprocessor, has come a long way since its humble beginnings as a personal project by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994. Originally designed as a set of Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts to track visits to his online resume, PHP quickly gained popularity and evolved into a full-fledged programming language. In 1997, two developers, Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski, rewrote the core of PHP, introducing a new architecture that allowed for more advanced features and improved performance. This new version, known as PHP 3, was released as an open-source project, making it accessible to a wider audience and leading to the rapid growth of its user base. With each subsequent version, PHP continued to improve and add new features, such as object-oriented programming, database integration, and support for various web frameworks. In 2004, PHP 5 was released, which included significant improvements and solidified PHP’s place as a mainstream programming language. Today, PHP powers over 78% of all websites on the internet, including some of the biggest names like Facebook and Wikipedia. Its versatility, ease of use, and vast community support have made it a go-to choice for web development. As technology continues to advance, so does PHP, with the latest version, PHP 8, introducing new features and improvements to keep up with the changing demands of the industry. From a simple personal project to a widely used programming language, the evolution of PHP is a testament to its enduring popularity and adaptability.