Markdown emerged in 2004 as a simple and intuitive way to format text for the web, developed by John Gruber to address the complexities of HTML. Its ease of use and effectiveness quickly led to widespread adoption across various platforms, fundamentally changing how content is created and shared online.

The article outlines a simple method for setting up a personal blog using static HTML and Markdown files, emphasizing ease of content creation and modern web standards. It provides a basic Python script for rendering Markdown posts into HTML and generating an index page, while discouraging the use of complex blogging platforms like Jekyll and WordPress.