This introduction highlights some of the scientific results reported in this special section on solar eruptive events and provides a brief description of issues related to the new results. Most of these papers grew out of the coordinated data analysis workshop held at the Goddard Space Flight Center during April 27--30, 1999, and the subsequent International Conference on Solar Eruptive Events held at the Catholic University of America, Washington, D. C. during March 6--9, 2000. ¿ 2001 American Geophysical Union