  For almost twenty years, a search for a Lorentzian version of the well-known
Connes' distance formula has been undertaken. Several authors have contributed
to this search, providing important milestones, and the time has now come to
put those elements together in order to get a valid and functional formula.
This paper presents a historical review of the construction and the proof of a
Lorentzian distance formula suitable for noncommutative geometry.
