Java was originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems in 1995. It is a platform independent, object-oriented programming language that is widely used for both desktop and mobile applications. Java code is compiled to bytecode that can run on any machine with a Java Virtual Machine. Key features of Java include being simple, secure, portable, object-oriented, and having multithreading support. Common uses of Java include web applications, mobile apps, and enterprise applications.