Java is an object-oriented programming language created in 1991 by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems, which was later acquired by Oracle Corporation. It uses concepts like encapsulation, inheritance, polymorphism, and abstraction to simplify software development and maintenance. Object-oriented programming creates objects that contain both data and behaviors to model real-world entities like chairs, pens, and computers. Classes are blueprints that define objects, while objects are specific instances of classes that occupy memory.