In 1983, Bosch GmbH began a feasibility study of using networked devices to control different functions in passenger cars. The study bore fruit, and in February 1986, the (at the time) innovative communications protocol of the Contgrol Area Network (CAN) was announced at the Congress of the Society of Automotive Engineers. Driven by technological developments in embedded systems, the proliferation of MEMS device arrays, the realization that life itself is supported by biomolecular networks, interest in multiagent robotics, and many other factors, the technology of real-time networked control systems has become perhaps the most important component of the rapidly emerging science of networks. This talk is an updated version of a broad overview that I gave at Boston University in 2008. I hope it will serve as a suitable introduction to this Workshop on Control and Observability of Network Dynamics.