From the Wikipedia entry on Vega:

Vega is the brightest star in the constellation Lyra, the fifth brightest star in the night sky and the second brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere, after Arcturus.  It is a relatively nearby star at only 25.3 light-years from Earth, and, together with Arcturus and Sirius, one of the most luminous stars in the Sun‘s neighborhood.

Vega has been extensively studied by astronomers, leading it to be termed, “arguably the next most important star in the sky after the Sun”.^[8] Historically, Vega served as the northern pole star at about 12,000 BCE and will do so again at around 14,000 CE. Vega was the first star, other than the Sun, to have its photograph taken and the first to have its spectrum photographed. It was also one of the first stars to have its distance estimated through parallax measurements.

Also:   Vega became the first star to have a car named after it when Chevrolet launched the Vega in 1971.