Scheme is a functional programming language developed in the 1970s at MIT. It is influenced by Lisp and has influenced languages like JavaScript, Ruby, and Clojure. Scheme uses s-expressions and supports both Windows and Linux. It is commonly used for embedded systems, compiler design, scripting, and teaching at many universities. The language has variants like Chez Scheme and Chicken Scheme. Core elements of Scheme include procedures, recursion, lambda expressions, conditionals, boolean logic, pairs, lists, vectors, and arithmetic operations.