Once upon a time, in the dim, distant past, the Web was little more than a bunch of boring academic documents that were exciting to the handful of scientists and physicists who were technically capable of putting such documents together and able to configure a cranky old dial-up modem. Then along came the img element, and the Web started its transformation into the form we know and love today.

Yes, that’s a slight oversimplification of how we got from A to B, but in all seriousness, until the elements detailed in this section were included in the W3C specs, and then in web browsers (or sometimes the other way around), the Web didn’t have much to offer in the way of eye candy.

The elements in this section provide many opportunities to liven up a web page, whether that be to add a few images (using the img element), perhaps add a Flash movie or some other multimedia item using the object or embed elements, or create interactive maps that users can navigate through using the map and area elements.