Python is a general purpose programming language that can be used for both programming and scripting. It was created in the 1990s by Guido van Rossum who named it after the Monty Python comedy troupe. People use Python for a variety of tasks due to its readability, object-oriented capabilities, extensive libraries, and ability to integrate with other languages. To run Python code, it must first be compiled into bytecode which is then interpreted by the Python virtual machine.