The history of echocardiography is a series of success stories in the advancement of the technology to image the heart. Today, echocardiography is the most frequently utilized imaging modality in cardiology and is at the center of our diagnostic and decision-making algorithms in many, if not most, cardiac pathologies. With current technology, echocardiography can provide useful information regarding cardiovascular structure and morphology, cardiac function, and hemodynamics in a noninvasive, versatile and portable modality that is relatively inexpensive and is safe to the patient and physician. Development of clinical cardiac ultrasound, two-dimensional echocardiography, conventional Doppler ultrasound, color Doppler ultrasound, and contrast echocardiography are explained. Transesophageal echocardiography, tissue Doppler and speckle tracking imaging, and three-dimensional echocardiography are described.