According to historic SGML DTDs for HTML, HTML 2 [1], dated 1995-09-21, doesn't declare a color attribute on body yet, while HTML 3.2, getting recommendation status in 1997-01-14, introduced it. HTML 4.01 strict removed [3] it, while HTML 4 loose [4] still has it. It's absent from the W3C-recommended HTML 5 spec captured as DTD [5] published in 2014, as well as the DTD for WHATWG's current HTML review draft dated January, 2023 [6].
Interestingly, <pre> and others were "deprecated" in HTML 2.0 already. Needless to say, they've become un-deprecated and are still in HTML.
Did those attributes come with HTML 2, or HTML 3.2?
Damn, I'm old enough to remember learning about the "new" HTML 3.2!