Who was Herodotus?

Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian, known as "the father of history" due to his innovations in historiography, or the study of history. Prior to Herodotus, history as a formal academic discipline didn't really exist. Past events tended to be jumbled up with myth, fable, and legend, so much so that it was difficult to establish what had really happened in history.
Herodotus adopted a completely new method for studying history, as can be seen in his monumental account of the Persian Wars. Known simply as The Histories, they set out to provide an exhaustive account of what really happened during this epic conflict. Previously, historical accounts tended to be fragmentary, little more than disjointed bits of travelogue. Herodotus was the first to recognize the importance of combining all the various pieces of information concerning a historical event into a coherent narrative that would enable the reader to gain a broader perspective on things.
However, Herodotus's encyclopedic approach to writing history has been criticized for insufficient academic rigor. There's very little in the way of analysis in Herodotus's work; he presents all the elements of his story as if they were of equal importance. Furthermore, Herodotus did not entirely dispense with myth and fable; they are still present in his narrative, though they are generally much easier to discern than in previous chronicles. For the most part, Herodotus used fictitious elements to serve the needs of the narrative, to make it flow more naturally and more entertaining to read.
Whatever his shortcomings as a historian, Herodotus put the academic study of history on a firm footing. To a large extent, historians ever since have been building upon foundations that he first established.