Java was created in 1991 by James Gosling, Mike Sheridan, and Patrick Naughton at Sun Microsystems. It has three editions: Java ME for limited devices, Java SE as the core platform for desktops and servers, and Java EE for large enterprise applications. Java code is compiled into bytecode that runs on a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) making Java portable across platforms. Key principles of Java include being object-oriented, secure, and platform independent.