The REST concept was formulated back in 2000, but I don't think it really gained steam until later on in the 2000s. This was a protocol that was designed to leverage concepts that the browser already understood, built on the following three core concepts:
Using HTTP verbs, for example, GET and POST, to specify the action you want to take, such as a read or a create action
Using HTTP status codes when responding to requests to indicate the success or failure of that request back to the caller
Using the URL of the request to indicate what resource (entity) you want to act against
These three concepts were already baked into the browser, so using them with a browser language such as Javascript seemed like a good fit. Then, using JSON as the data protocol on top of REST was a great match too as JSON was already native to Javascript. Parsing and generating JSON was a snap within Javascript, so much easier than parsing and generating SOAP and XML, as it was previously...