The High Altitude Observatory (HAO) was founded in 1940 as a branch of the Harvard College Observatory. Originally HAO consisted of a single solar coronal observing station near the mining town of Climax, Colorado, but though the years has grown to conduct a broad program of observational and theoretical research in the fields of solar and solar terrestrial physics and in related fields of astrophysics. Shortly after its establishment, the Observatory became affiliated with the University of Colorado as an independent research organization, and in 1960 it became a research division of the then-newly founded National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The HAO conducts fundamental and applied research in solar-terrestrial physics using observational, theoretical, and numerical methods.