I think what's astonishing about SVG is it was implemented in the early 2000s, then nearly forgotten. But it still worked in browsers and had a resurgence in the early 2010s. Partly because of the end of Flash, partly because of D3.js. That fallow period between 2003-2011 is remarkable to me, I'm surprised it survived it.
One history of this era: https://medium.com/siliconpublishing/the-fall-and-rise-of-sv...