In Java, the Thread class is used to create and manage threads. It provides a set of methods for starting, stopping, and controlling the execution of threads.

To create a new thread, you can create a subclass of the Thread class and override its run method. The run method is where the code to be executed in the thread is placed. Here is an example of creating and starting a new thread using a subclass of Thread:

class MyThread extends Thread {
    public void run() {
        // code to be executed in the thread
    }
}

MyThread thread = new MyThread();
thread.start();

When the start method is called, a new thread is created and the run method of the MyThread class is executed in that thread.

The Thread class also provides a number of other methods for controlling the execution of threads, such as sleep, which allows a thread to pause for a specified amount of time, and yield, which allows a thread to voluntarily give up the CPU to another thread. The join method can be used to wait for a thread to complete before continuing with the execution of the current thread.

To stop a thread, the stop method can be called. However, it is generally recommended to avoid using this method, as it can cause thread synchronization issues and is deprecated in more recent versions of Java. Instead, threads should be stopped using a cooperative approach, where the run method periodically checks a flag to see if it should stop.

In addition to the Thread class, Java provides several higher-level abstractions for managing threads, such as the Executor and ExecutorService interfaces. These abstractions can make it easier to manage pools of threads and schedule tasks for execution.