In this issue, we are celebrating a big event: This month marks exactly the 40th anniversary of our academic journal. The first issue of Cytometry/Cytometry Part A was published in June 1980, 100 years after the (first) founding of the journal Science . Forty year, for a scientific journal, is a remarkably long existence, considering that the history of typical scientific publishing in journals is relatively short: Virchows Archiv 173 years, Nature 151 years, Science 140 years, PNAS 106 years, and Cell 46 years.

When preparing this celebratory editorial, I communicated with Brian H. Mayall, the Founding Editor of Cytometry , and many other colleagues who shaped the journal from its very beginnings, including Robert Hoffman, Kathy Muirhead, and Zbigniew Darzynkiewicz. For this 40th anniversary issue, Darzynkiewicz wrote an exciting paper chronicling the journal's history and its contributions to science (this issue, pp. 557‐562). Not only has he been Associate Editor since the very beginning of the journal and the only editor who is on board for 40 years, but has also authored the review on the “Features of apoptotic cells measured by flow cytometry ” (1) which is by far the highest cited article published in our journal's history and a real evergreen, still cited about 30 times a year. Bob Hoffman has also contributed a personal perspective on the journal's 40th birthday (this issue, pp. 563‐565).

I will not recapitulate what has already been written about the birth, primal scream and first decades of the journal, from the first proposals in the late 1970s to the final decision of the SAC (Society for Analytical Cytology), the forerunner of the ISAC, to launch the journal. This has already been beautifully described in the editorial by Brian H. Mayall in 2004 (2), which I recommend for further reading.

Nevertheless, Robert Hoffman kindly shared with me some early documents which he allowed me to use for this editorial. They are illustrating the process of decision making to establish a journal of its own right. You can see the final announcement of founding the new journal Cytometry in the SAC Newsletter to the membership from October 8, 1979 (Fig. 1). It is also interesting to read more about it in other newsletters from 1979; you can find them in the supplementary material. They show the first announcement of plans for future publications (A. January 1979), the ballot for starting a new journal or not (B. February 1979), and the final announcement (C. October 1979).

在本期中，我们正在庆祝一件大事：本月正好是我们学术期刊创刊 40 周年。Cytometry/Cytometry Part A的第一期于 1980 年 6 月出版，即科学杂志（第一次）创刊 100 年后。40年，对于一个科学期刊来说，是一个非常漫长的存在，因为典型的科学出版期刊的历史相对较短：Virchows Archiv 173年，Nature 151年，Science 140年，PNAS 106年，Cell 46年。

在准备这篇庆祝社论时，我与Cytometry的创始编辑 Brian H. Mayall以及许多其他从一开始就塑造了该杂志的同事进行了交流，包括 Robert Hoffman、Kathy Muirhead 和 Zbigniew Darzynkiewicz。在 40 周年纪念刊中，Darzynkiewicz 撰写了一篇激动人心的论文，记录了该期刊的历史及其对科学的贡献（本期，第 557-562 页）。他不仅自该杂志创刊以来一直担任副主编，并且是唯一一位在职 40 年的编辑，而且还撰写了关于“流式细胞术测量凋亡细胞的特征”（1）的评论。) 是迄今为止我们期刊历史上发表的引用最高的文章，也是真正的常青树，每年仍被引用约 30 次。Bob Hoffman 还就期刊 40 岁生日发表了个人观点（本期，第 563-565 页）。

从 1970 年代后期的第一个提案到 ISAC 的前身 SAC（分析细胞学学会）的最终决定，我不会重述关于该杂志的诞生、原始尖叫和最初几十年的内容，启动期刊。这已经在 Brian H. Mayall 2004 年的社论 ( 2 ) 中进行了精美的描述，我推荐进一步阅读。

尽管如此，罗伯特·霍夫曼还是亲切地与我分享了一些早期的文件，他允许我在这篇社论中使用这些文件。他们正在说明建立自己的期刊的决策过程。从 1979 年 10 月 8 日起，您可以在 SAC 通讯中看到创建新期刊Cytometry的最终公告（图 1）。在 1979 年的其他时事通讯中阅读更多关于它的内容也很有趣；您可以在补充材料中找到它们。它们显示了未来出版​​物计划的首次公告（A. 1979 年 1 月）、是否开办新期刊的投票（B. 1979 年 2 月）以及最终公告（C. 1979 年 10 月）。