C is a programming language developed in the 1970s as a tool for writing operating systems. It was created as an improvement on the B language by Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs. C language allows for communication between humans and computers in the same way that natural languages like English allow for communication between humans. It has since become widely used for software development due to its flexibility, efficiency, and ability to be compiled on different platforms. The basic structure of a C program includes sections for documentation, includes, definitions, global declarations, the main function, and other functions.