The Ways of Science Through the Lens of the Woodward-Hoffmann Rules. The Stories Begin*.

This is Paper 1 in a 27-paper series on the history of the development of the Woodward-Hoffmann rules, also known as the Principle of Conservation of Orbital Symmetry. In addition to presenting an outline of this series, this manuscript provides a short overview of the chemical problem eventually solved by the Woodward-Hoffmann rules is presented.