Bitcoin project was initiated by Satoshi Nakamoto (presumed pseudoname) right after financial collapse of 2008. Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, a form of money based on cryptography for control of its creation and management to avoid relying on central authorities.
Later in 2013 Ethereum was coined by Vitalik Buterin as a result of his research and work in the Bitcoin community. The Ethereum client has been implemented in seven programming languages (C++, Go, Python, Java, JavaScript, Haskell, Rust), and has resulted in better software overall.
Since then more than 3500 new cryptocurrences have been created based on cryptography and blockchain technology.