  The exploitation of the power and the spatial resolution of HST and new
generation ground-based telescopes allows to measure with good precision the
individual stars of galaxies in and beyond the Local Group. This leads to very
successful studies of the star formation histories of galaxies of different
morphological types. Our current knowledge of the star formation history of
galaxies within 10-20 Mpc, as derived from the colour-magnitude diagrams of
their resolved stellar populations, is reviewed here.
