It is a privilege to be Editor-in-Chief of the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics in 2020 as it celebrates its 40th year. This is my fifth issue as Editor. I will begin this short introduction by paying tribute, with the help of Bill Grabe (Northern Arizona University), to the founding editor of the journal, Robert Kaplan (1929-2020). Without Robert Kaplan, none of us would be reading these pages. We will then turn to some comments from each of the previous editors on a few of the highlights of their time editing the journal, along with words for the future. After this, I will describe some recent updates, go through a few of the historical successes of the journal, and then turn to the contents of the exciting current issue, Looking back and moving ahead.