The IETF has a data tracker for its RFCs.
This means that you can flesh out the development timeline by adding the various drafts for each RFC. And you can narrow down dates to the date of the first published draft.
What this doesn't tell you when development for the first submitted draft of each RFC started.
Also the "SSL" named protocols were not developed through the RFC process.
#Datatrackers
- https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc6101/history/, SSL3.0. Published as a historic RFC much later than the actual development.
- https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc2246/history/, TLS 1.0
- https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc4346/history/, TLS 1.1
- https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc5246/history/, TLS 1.2
- https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-tls-tls13/history/, TLS 1.3
#Partial timeline
- 1996-12-03, TLS 1.0, first draft (of 6)
- 1999-01-01, TLS 1.0, RFC published
- 2002-02-19, TLS 1.1, first draft (of 13)
- 2006-03-02, TLS 1.2, first draft (of 10)
- 2006-04-26, TLS 1.1, RFC published
- 2008-08-15, TLS 1.2, RFC published
- 2014-04-17, TLS 1.3, first draft
#Further reading
- Ivan RisticRistić, Bulletproof SSL and TLS, introductory chapter is free online. Section "Protocol History" on page 3.
- And especially this quote:
For a much more detailed history of the early years of the SSL protocol, I recommend Eric Rescorla’s book SSL and TLS: Designing and Building Secure Systems (Addison-Wesley, 2001), pages 47–51.
- Nice scrollable timeline here: Ivan Ristić, SSL/TLS and PKI History