This manuscript accompanies a keynote lecture given at the 40th ITM conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. In this keynote lecture I gave an historical overview of research on mercury (Hg) as a global pollutant. Historically, the incident of unintentional mass Hg poisoning in Minamata, Japan in 1956 sparked a decades long endeavor to understand the cycling of Hg in the environment. I will show, how our understanding of the processes governing global Hg cycling have changed radically over the years and what role models have played in these discoveries. In 2017, the efforts of the Hg research community lead to the ratification of the UN Minamata Convention on Mercury by 151 countries. Currently, an international consortium of modelers is preparing the first multi-compartment model ensemble study (MCHgMAP) under the HTAP/LRTAP umbrella to support the first effectiveness evaluation of the Convention. In the following, I will present the modeling approach and first results of the MCHgMAP study with a focus on marine Hg cycling and air-sea exchange.