Major advances in observational astronomy over the past 20 years have revolutionized our view of cosmic history, transforming our understanding of how the hot, smooth, early universe evolved into the complex and beautiful universe of stars and galaxies in which we now live. I describe how astronomers have used a range of complementary techniques to map out the rise and fall of star formation over 95% of cosmic time, back to the current observational frontier only similar to 500 million years after the Big Bang.