Quasars and the Birth & Evolution of Galaxies

It was on February 5, 1963 (just 8 days before my birth) that astronomer
Maarten Schmidt ran through the hallways of Caltech announcing that
he had discovered the high redshift nature of quasars, then known only
as mysterious points of light recently identified in radio surveys. In
the interim period our understanding of their place in the universe has
gone from that of isolated, ultraluminous freaks of nature to crucial
links in the birth and evolution of massive galaxies. I will present an
overview of these very recent and dramatic developments.