The History of JavaScript

Introduced in 1995, JavaScript, an object oriented web scripting language, has become an international standard allowing web developers the ability to write Dynamic HTML that works on multiple browsers.

Brendan Eich

JavaScript was created by Netscape programmer Brendan Eich. The web scripting language was first released under the name of LiveScript as part of Netscape Navigator 2.0 in September 1995. It was renamed JavaScript on December 4, 1995.
In "Making Web Pages Come Alive" Brendan Eich said the following about how JavaScript came about:
I came to Netscape in April 1995, after seven years at Silicon Graphics and three years at MicroUnity Systems Engineering. Netscape was about a year old then and was looking for someone to work on a scripting language or some kind of language inside the browser that could be used to automate parts of a web page or make a web page more dynamic. Java had been around for five years at First Person and Sun, and had been retooled for the web in late 1994. Netscape was the first Java licensee, so the issue became: Can we do just Java, or do we need another language?
Brendan Eich was named Web Innovator of the Year by c/net's Builder.com in April 1998.