Over the years, I have read with great interest several articles and
book chapters about historical aspects of electron microscopy. The
report by F. Haguenau et al. about the key events in the history of
electron microscopy (Microscopy and Microanalysis, Vol. 9, No.
2, April 2003, pp. 96–138) is, to my knowledge, by far the most
comprehensive article ever published. The authors did a superb job in
first listing chronologically the development of electron optics and
instrumentation for the years from 1897 to 2002, and then describing
major applications in physics and materials science, as well as life
sciences.