This document provides an introduction to sliding mode control. It discusses how sliding mode control originated in the 1950s with the work of S.V. Emel'yanov on variable structure control. Variable structure control involved switching between unstable constituent systems to obtain stability in the combined system. The key concepts of sliding mode control are introduced, including the sliding surface that defines the desired system behavior and the reaching law that ensures the system state trajectory converges to the sliding surface in finite time. Sliding mode control provides robustness as the system dynamics are independent of parameters on the sliding surface.