 Gödel's program for large cardinal axioms proved to be remarkably successful. Over the course of the next 30 years it was shown that large cardinal axioms settle many of the questions that were shown to be independent during the era of independence. However, CH was left untouched. The situation turned out to be rather ironic since in the end it was shown (in a sense that can be made precise) that although the standard large cardinal axioms effectively settle all question of complexity strictly below that of CH, they cannot (by results of Levy and Solovay and others) settle CH itself. Thus, in choosing CH as a test case for his program, Gödel put his finger precisely on the point where it fails. It is for this reason that CH continues to play a central role in the search for new axioms. 