JavaScript was conceived by Brendan Eich for Netscape 2.0 and subsequently independently implemented as JScript by Microsoft for IE 3.0.
Standards work began in November 1996. First edition adopted by ECMA GA in June 1997
Submitted in April 1998 to fast track process in ISO/IEC JTC1, leading to ISO/IEC 16262 standard. (ECMA-262).
3rd edition adopted by ECMA GA in December 1999, it adds regular expressions, better string handling, try/catch, number formatting etc.
Work is currently in progress for 4th edition and ECMA TC39 is seeking tighter coordination with the W3C and the WAP Forum.