Python was created by Guido van Rossum in 1990 and draws influences from languages like ABC, Lisp, Perl, and Haskell. It is an interpreted, high-level, general-purpose programming language that is designed to be highly readable. Python emphasizes code readability by utilizing syntax like indentation instead of curly braces and omitting characters like semicolons. It supports multiple programming paradigms including object-oriented, imperative and functional programming.