In the fourty-six years that have gone by since the first volume of Progress in Optics was published, optics has become one of the most dynamic fields of science. The volumes in this series which have appeared up to now contain nearly 300 review articles by distinguished research workers, which have become permanent records for many important developments. Historical Overview Attosecond Laser Pulses History of Conical Refraction Particle Concept of Light Field Quantization in Optics History of Near-Field Optics History of Tunneling Influence of Young's Interference Experiment on Development of Statistical optics Planck, Photon Statistics and Bose-Einstein Condensation