A History (API) Lesson

History, in the context of a Web browser, has generally meant the back button, and it has never been easy to manage. It became even more of a challenge when AJAX became significant in Web applications and we started to see the typical Web site grow into more of a rich Web application. And as JavaScript became enabled—rather than disabled—by default, single-page Web applications emerged that made heavy use of client-side JavaScript. But there was no good way to deal with client-side storage, databases or even the general state between pages.