Crockford mentions Scheme right before that, so he's aware lambdas originated with Lisp, presumably. I guess he means JS was the first mainstream language to popularize them?
Yeah, that is why I think I can see the point with charity to the discussion. Still an awkward proclamation. Many people were coding with LISPs for a long time before javascript came onto the scene. And I don't think LISPs were the only language with lambdas?