IS THERE A METALLIC PHASE IN TWO DIMENSIONS? Myriam Sarachik City College of the City University of New York The anomalous behavior of strongly interacting two-dimensional systems of electrons (or holes) have drawn intensive recent attention: the resistivity exhibits metallic temperature-dependence above a critical density nc, and the resistivity increases dramatically with in-plane magnetic field, saturating to a new value above a characteristic magnetic field Hsat. These phenomena have prompted intense debate concerning whether there is a metal-insulator transition and a true metallic phase in two dimensions; whether the observations signal new physics or can be explained by extending known theory into a new regime. A brief history will be presented and the current situation will be discussed.