J2SE 1.2 (December 8, 1998)
Codename Playground. This and subsequent releases through J2SE 5.0 were rebranded retrospectively Java 2 and the version name "J2SE" (Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition) replaced JDK to distinguish the base platform from J2EE (Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition) and J2ME (Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition). This was a very significant release of Java as it tripled the size of the Java platform to 1520 classes in 59 packages. Major additions included:
strictfpkeyword- the Swing graphical API was integrated into the core classes
- Sun's JVM was equipped with a JIT compiler for the first time
- Java Plug-in
- Java IDL, an IDL implementation for CORBA interoperability
- Collections framework
Read more about this topic: Java Version History