We review some classical and modern aspects of hypergeometric differential equations, including A-hypergeometric systems of Gel$$'$$
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fand, Graev, Kapranov and Zelevinsky. Some recent advances in this theory, such as Euler–Koszul homology, rank jump phenomena, irregularity questions and Hodge theoretic aspects are discussed with more details. We also give some applications of the theory of hypergeometric systems to toric mirror symmetry.