  Our Milky Way Galaxy is a typical large spiral galaxy, representative of the
most common morphological type in the local Universe. We can determine the
properties of individual stars in unusual detail, and use the characteristics
of the stellar populations of the Galaxy as templates in understanding more
distant galaxies. The star formation history and merging history of the Galaxy
is written in its stellar populations; these reveal that the Galaxy has evolved
rather quietly over the last ~10 Gyr. More detailed simulations of galaxy
formation are needed, but this result apparently makes our Galaxy unusual if
Lambda CDM is indeed the correct cosmological paradigm for structure formation.
While our Milky Way is only one galaxy, a theory in which its properties are
very anomalous most probably needs to be revised. Happily, observational
capabilities of next-generation facilities should, in the the forseeable
future, allow the aquisition of detailed observations for all galaxies in the
Local Group.
