Abstract: Nowadays the Goos-Hänchen shift is generally referred to as a tiny lateral shift in the incident plane, displaced from the prediction of geometrical optics, for the reflected or transmitted light of a finite beam at an interface. Research on this shift can be traced back to the time of Newton, but it was only in 1947 that it was observed experimentally, after which interest gradually increased and research developed. As a basic physical phenomenon, the Goos-Hänchen shift has been extended to the fields of acoustics, quantum mechanics, matter waves, and so on. In this paper we present a review on its discovery, theoretical explanation, and some latest advances.