A Brief History of Python
Guido van Rossum is the author of Python, an interpreted, interactive object-oriented programming language. In the late 1980s, Van Rossum began work on Python at the National Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science in the Netherlands, or Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica (CWI) as it is known in Dutch. Since then, Python has become very popular among developers, who are attracted to its clean syntax and reputation for productivity.
Python Implementation started on December, 1989 and reached version 1.0 in January 1994. Python 2.0 was released on October 16, 2000 , with many major new features, including a cycle-detecting garbage collector (in addition to reference counting) for memory management and support for Unicode. However, the most important change was to the development process itself, with a shift to a more transparent and community-backed process. Python 3.0, a major, backwards-incompatible release, was released on December 3, 2008 after a long period of testing. Many of its major features have also been backported to the backwards-compatible, while by now unsupported, Python 2.6 and 2.7.
There are two production-ready versions of Python 2.x and Python 3.x . The recommended version is 3.x, which is supported by most widely used libraries. Although 2.x is still widely used, it will not be maintained after January 1, 2020 .
Python Versions
Version |
Release Date |
Implementation started |
December, 1989 |
Internal releases at CWI |
1990 |
Python 0.x
Version |
Release Date |
Python 0.9.0 (alt.sources) |
February 20, 1991 |
Python 0.9.1 |
February, 1991 |
Python 0.9.2 |
Autumn, 1991 |
Python 0.9.4 |
December 24, 1991 |
Python 0.9.5 (Mac only) |
January 2, 1992 |
Python 0.9.6 |
April 6, 1992 |
Python 0.9.7 ( beta) |
Unknown, 1992 |
Python 0.9.8 |
January 9, 1993 |
Python 0.9.9 |
July 29, 1993 |
Python 1.x
Version |
Release Date |
Python 1.0.0 |
January 26, 1994 |
Python 1.0.2 |
February 15, 1994 |
Python 1.0.3 |
May 4, 1994 |
Python 1.0.4 |
July 14, 1994 |
Python 1.1 |
October 11, 1994 |
Python 1.1.1 |
November 10, 1994 |
Python 1.2 |
April 13, 1995 |
Python 1.3 |
October 13, 1995 |
Python 1.4 |
October 25, 1996 |
Python 1.5 |
17 February 1998 |
Python 1.5.1 |
14 April 1998 |
Python 1.5.1p1 |
6 August 1998 |
Python 1.5.2 |
30 April 1999 |
Python 1.5.2p1 |
6 July 1999 |
Python 1.5.2p2 |
22 March 2000 |
Python 1.6 |
5 September 2000 |
Python 2.x
Version |
Release Date |
Python 2.0 |
16 October 2000 |
Python 2.0.1 |
22 June 2001 |
Python 2.1 |
15 April 2001 |
Python 2.1.1 |
20 July 2001 |
Python 2.1.2 |
16 January 2002 |
Python 2.1.3 |
8 April 2002 |
Python 2.2 |
21 December 2001 |
Python 2.2p1 |
29 March 2002 |
Python 2.2.1 |
10 April 2002 |
Python 2.2.2 |
14 October 2002 |
Python 2.2.3 |
30 May 2003 |
Python 2.3 |
29 July 2003 |
Python 2.3.1 |
23 September 2003 |
Python 2.3.2 |
3 October 2003 |
Python 2.3.3 |
19 December 2003 |
Python 2.3.4 |
27 May 2004 |
Python 2.3.5 |
8 February 2005 |
Python 2.4 |
30 November 2004 |
Python 2.4.1 |
30 March 2005 |
Python 2.4.2 |
28 September 2005 |
Python 2.4.3 |
29 March 2006 |
Python 2.4.4 |
18 October 2006 |
Python 2.5 |
19 September 2006 |
Python 2.5.1 |
18 April 2007 |
Python 2.5.2 |
21 February 2008 |
Python 2.5.3 |
19 December 2008 |
Python 2.5.4 |
23 December 2008 |
Python 2.6 |
1 October 2008 |
Python 2.6.1 |
4 December 2008 |
Python 2.6.2 |
14 April 2009 |
Python 2.6.3 |
2 October 2009 |
Python 2.6.4 |
25 October 2009 |
Python 2.6.5 |
19 March 2010 |
Python 2.6.6 |
24 August 2010 |
Python 2.6.7 |
3 June 2011 |
Python 2.6.8 |
10 April 2012 |
Python 2.6.9 |
29 October 2013 |
Python 2.7 |
4 July 2010 |
Python 2.7.1 |
27 November 2010 |
Python 2.7.2 |
11 June 2011 |
Python 2.7.3 |
9 April 2012 |
Python 2.7.4 |
6 April 2013 |
Python 2.7.5 |
15 May 2013 |
Python 2.7.6 |
10 November 2013 |
Python 2.7.7 |
31 May 2014 |
Python 2.7.8 |
1 July 2014 |
Python 2.7.9 |
10 December 2014 |
Python 2.7.10 |
23 May 2015 |
Python 2.7.11 |
5 December 2015 |
Python 2.7.12 |
26 June 2016 |
Python 2.7.13 |
17 December 2016 |
Python 2.7.14 |
16 September 2017 |
Python 2.7.15 |
30 April 2018 |
Python 2.7.16 |
02 March 2019 |
Python 2.7.17 |
19 October 2019 |
Python 3.x
Version |
Release Date |
Python 3.0 |
3 December 2008 |
Python 3.0.1 |
13 February 2009 |
Python 3.1 |
27 June 2009 |
Python 3.1.1 |
17 August 2009 |
Python 3.1.2 |
21 March 2010 |
Python 3.1.3 |
27 November 2010 |
Python 3.1.4 |
11 June 2011 |
Python 3.1.5 |
9 April 2012 |
Python 3.2 |
20 February 2011 |
Python 3.2.1 |
10 July 2011 |
Python 3.2.2 |
4 September 2011 |
Python 3.2.3 |
10 April 2012 |
Python 3.2.4 |
7 April 2013 |
Python 3.2.5 |
15 May 2013 |
Python 3.2.6 |
11 October 2014 |
Python 3.3.0 |
29 September 2012 |
Python 3.3.1 |
7 April 2013 |
Python 3.3.2 |
15 May 2013 |
Python 3.3.3 |
17 November 2013 |
Python 3.3.4 |
9 February 2014 |
Python 3.3.5 |
9 March 2014 |
Python 3.3.6 |
12 October 2014 |
Python 3.3.7 |
19 September 2017 |
Python 3.4.0 |
16 March 2014 |
Python 3.4.1 |
18 May 2014 |
Python 3.4.2 |
4 October 2014 |
Python 3.4.3 |
25 February 2015 |
Python 3.4.4 |
06 December 2015 |
Python 3.4.5 |
26 June 2016 |
Python 3.4.6 |
17 January 2017 |
Python 3.4.7 |
25 July 2017 |
Python 3.4.8 |
4 February 2018 |
Python 3.4.9 |
8 August 2018 |
Python 3.4.10 |
18 March 2019 |
Python 3.5.0 |
13 September 2015 |
Python 3.5.1 |
07 December 2015 |
Python 3.5.2 |
27 June 2016 |
Python 3.5.3 |
17 January 2017 |
Python 3.5.4 |
25 July 2017 |
Python 3.5.5 |
4 February 2018 |
Python 3.5.6 |
8 August 2018 |
Python 3.5.7 |
18 March 2019 |
Python 3.5.8 |
29 October 2019 |
Python 3.6.0 |
23 December 2016 |
Python 3.6.1 |
21 March 2017 |
Python 3.6.2 |
17 July 2017 |
Python 3.6.3 |
03 October 2017 |
Python 3.6.4 |
19 December 2017 |
Python 3.6.5 |
28 March 2018 |
Python 3.6.6 |
27 June 2018 |
Python 3.6.7 |
20 October 2018 |
Python 3.6.8 |
24 December 2018 |
Python 3.6.9 |
02 July 2019 |
Python 3.6.10 |
18 December 2019 |
Python 3.7.0 |
27 June 2018 |
Python 3.7.1 |
20 October 2018 |
Python 3.7.2 |
24 December 2018 |
Python 3.7.3 |
25 March 2019 |
Python 3.7.4 |
08 July 2019 |
Python 3.7.5 |
15 October 2019 |
Python 3.7.6 |
18 December 2019 |
Python 3.7.7 |
10 March 2020 |
Python 3.8.0 |
14 October 2019 |
Python 3.8.1 |
18 December 2019 |
Python 3.8.2 |
24 February 2020 |
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