Eric has written an often brilliantly funny canned history of the way CSS worked (or, more specifically, didn't) in the early days of the Web. It's worth a read just to see how good we have it today, a sentiment they sum up in such excellent fashion that I had to save it:

I know it’s still fashionable to complain about how CSS is all janky and weird and unapproachable, but child, the wrinkles of today are a sunny park stroll compared to the jagged icebound cliff we faced at the dawn of CSS.