I helped invent XML. It happened (mostly) between July and December 1996. There were 11 people who did the heavy work on the XML Working Group. There were three co-editors of the official XML specification. I was one of the eleven and one of the three.
Once the basic work was done, it took until February 1998 to finish up and ship a finished product, and I hung on until early 1999 working on the namespaces problem.
A few of us, chiefly myself and Jon Bosak, went on the missionary trail, trying to convince the world they should use this new thing. It was like throwing your weight against a door that turns not to be even latched; the world more or less said "OK, then."
I suspect that however many more years I go on working, I'll go to my grave best-known as the XML Guy.
