The Formation and Evolution of Massive Star Clusters: Historical Overview

Some factors connecting the evolutionary histories of galaxies with the characteristics of their cluster systems are reviewed. Unanswered questions include: How is one to understand the observation that some globular cluster systems have disk kinematics whereas others do not? Why do some galaxies have cluster systems with unimodal metallicity distributions, whereas others have bimodal metallicity distributions? What caused the average ellipticity of individual clusters to differ from galaxy to galaxy?