Abstract The history and observational properties of the soft gamma repeaters are reviewed. Over the past decades, we have gone from viewing these objects as a special class of cosmic gamma-ray burst, to seeing them as one manifestation of magnetars. There is now a solid body of multi-wavelength observations, as well as some more controversial properties. There are indications that extragalactic giant magnetar flares have been detected. There are still a number of fundamental unanswered questions, which will require better theory, more sensitive observations, and many years to answer.

Keywords neutron stars magnetars

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