The actual beginning of punk rock culture is usually dated back to 1970-s when this anti-establishment music appeared for the first time. Word "punk" itself means disrespectful and worthless and at first it was used to describe music of untutored rock and roll bands (in most cases guitar based bands) in the United States in 1960-s. But it was not what is now called punk. Today these rock and roll bands are usually referred to as "garage rock".
Officially for the first time the term punk was used in 1971 by the critic Dave Marsh to describe the music of "Mickey and the Mysterians"(article in "Creem" magazine). And soon after that a great number of rock journalists started to use the term punk in their articles.
The roots of punk rock also lie in what is presently considered as separate music style. For example, early periods of David Bowie and Gary Glitter (today this style is called "art rock" or sometimes "glam rock") were called punk rock at the time. Punk music of those times was mainly a reaction to popular music like "disco" - punk musicians rejected all these culture and tried to build an alternative for that.
As for the music as long as punk is a style of untrained guitar bands in most cases it is based on pretty simple compositions but at the same time this is a pretty strong music. And songs of punk are usually sort - in most cases no longer than 80-90 seconds.
Pretty soon this music outgrew in punk culture which rejected general values. Even special punk fashion appeared - ripped off clothes in punk style was held together by shaving razors or safety pins. In their performances punk bands often used very provoking an aggressive cosmetics and hairstyles. Till modern days a "Mohawk" like haircut is known to be of punk culture, for example.
Although punk culture and music had a great number of followers it was never a popular style of music. But in 1990-s punk style received a new breath. With a 1994's album "Dookie" of "Green Day" band what is called pop punk appeared. This album of "Green Day" band had an enormously huge commercial success for the punk band. And it is not only the sales of Green Day albums - the rotation of "Green Day" songs on radio and MTv was also huge. It is even possible to say that "Green Day" made punk popular - since that time there is a new style in music - pop punk. And that was only the beginning of Green Day history as a Pop Punk band.
And as long as the style became very popular the success of other punk bands soon followed. Only several months later punk band "Offspring" released their "Smash" album which also was very successful.
And all this success of new punk bands leads to a bigger popularity of punk bands of the 80's. Already well known bands in the punk style have found much wider audience.
And in 2000, a new wave of pop punk came - as opposed to popular at the time so-called "boyz bands" like Backstreet boys or NSYNC numerous pop punk bands started to form. So, today the number of punk bands is much higher than it was back in 80's but the actual style has changed also and punk music these days became much more commercial.