We give a broad overview of the historical development and physics of Brillouin scattering. We discuss the seminal papers of Brillouin and Mandelstam and give the historical context of their research. We discuss the development of experiments and observations from the early, prelaser work to the present day. We then give a broad, nonmathematical explanation of Brillouin scattering as it is currently understood, and outline the different types of scattering as well as the conditions under which it occurs.