Bjarne Stroustrup started work on C with Classes in 1979 at Bell Labs. In 1983 it was renamed C++.
C++ began as enhancements to the C language by adding: Classes, exception handling, operator overloading, templates, multiple inheritance and virtual functions.
The first edition of C++ was released in 1985 At this point there was no standard
C was released in 1989 First standard: ANSI X
The second edition was released in 1991
The current standard was introduced in September 2011 as ISO/IEC 14882:2011ISO/IEC 14882
Object oriented language Sometimes regarded as a hybrid language Allows developers to choose programming style Operates at a high level of abstraction Performance and memory efficient Popular with a broad base of users