Java Verions and Features

• Java SE 8 (1.8) - 18 March 2014

• Lambda Expressions
• Pipelines and Streams
• Date and Time API
• Default Methods
• Type Annotations
• Nashhorn JavaScript Engine
• Concurrent Accumulators
• Parallel operations
• PermGen Error Removed
• TLS SNI

• Java SE 7 (1.7) - July 28, 2011 - Small language changes, API Changes
• Strings in switch Statement
• Type Inference for Generic Instance Creation
• Multiple Exception Handling
• Support for Dynamic Languages
• Try with Resources
• Java nio Package
• Binary Literals, underscore in literals
• Diamond Syntax
• Automatic null Handling

     See here for more detailed information on JDK 1.7 features.

• Java SE 6 (1.6) - Dec 11, 2006 - Rhino, JDBC 4.0 ..

• Scripting Language Support
• JDBC 4.0 API
• Java Compiler API
• Pluggable Annotations
• Native PKI, Java GSS, Kerberos and LDAP support.
• Integrated Web Services.
• Lot more enhancements.

• J2SE 5.0 (1.5) - 2004 - Generics, Autoboxing..

• Generics
• Enhanced for Loop
• Autoboxing/Unboxing
• Typesafe Enums
• Varargs
• Static Import
• Metadata (Annotations)
• Instrumentation

• J2SE 1.4 - 2002 - assert, NIO, Web start..

• XML Processing
• Java Print Service
• Logging API
• Java Web Start
• JDBC 3.0 API
• Assertions
• Preferences API
• Chained Exception
• IPv6 Support
• Regular Expressions
• Image I/O API

• J2SE 1.3 - May 8, 2000 - HotSpot JVM..

• Java Sound
• Jar Indexing
• A huge list of enhancements in almost all the java area.

• J2SE 1.2 - Dec 8, 1998 - Swing, Collections...

• Collections framework.
• Java String memory map for constants.
• Just In Time (JIT) compiler.
• Jar Signer for signing Java ARchive (JAR) files.
• Policy Tool for granting access to system resources.
• Java Foundation Classes (JFC) which consists of Swing 1.0, Drag and Drop, and Java 2D class libraries.
• Java Plug-in
• Scrollable result sets, BLOB, CLOB, batch update, user-defined types in JDBC.
• Audio support in Applets.

• JDK 1.1 - Feb 19, 1997 - JDBC, RMI, Reflection..

• JDBC (Java Database Connectivity)
• Inner Classes
• Java Beans
• RMI (Remote Method Invocation)
• Reflection (introspection only)

• JDK 1.0 - January 23, 1996.
• Codenamed Oak and released on January 23, 1996.