[currysausage]

If I remember correctly, W3C’s XHTML2 working group wanted a generic <h> tag [1], and WHATWG, focused on evolving HTML in a backwards-compatible manner, repurposed <h1> as a context-dependent heading tag instead.

[1] https://www.w3.org/TR/2010/NOTE-xhtml2-20101216/mod-structur....