HTML is the basic language of the World Web with English roots. It was invented in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee and uses tags to describe elements in simple ASCII text files for scripting content online rather than programming. Common versions include HTML 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5. Basic tools to setup a website include text editors and web browsers, while HTML uses tags like <HTML>, <HEAD>, <BODY>, and <Title> in a template to structure documents.