George Ellery Hale is best known for the planning and building of the 200 inch Hale Telescope at the Palomar Mountain Observatory. This text provides a biography of this astronomer who was responsible for laying a large amount of the foundations of modern astrophysics and observational astronomy. It examines Hale's scientific achievements, including his invention of the spectroheliograph, his discovery of the magnetic nature of sunspots, and his part in the founding of the Yerkes, Mount Wilson and Palomar Mountain Observatories.