In 1896 Henri Becquerel discovered that uranium emitted penetrating rays similar to X-rays. His finding started a series of discoveries that were rewarded with numerous Nobel prizes. Marie and Pierre Curie found that thorium was radioactive too, and discovered and described two new elements, polonium and radium. They also found that radioactive radiation could be separated into alpha, beta and gamma rays. In 1993 their daughter Irene Joliot-Curie and her husband Frederic Joliot managed to produce radioactivity artificially by bombarding atomic nuclei with alpha particles. Enrico Fermi did likewise, but bombarded the nuclei with neutrons. In the cyclotron invented by Ernest Lawrence, radioactive isotopes were produced by proton bombardment. The ability to produce radioisotopes of different elements initiated a variety of tracer studies in biology and medicine. The number of studies increased exponentially when the nuclear reactor in Oak Ridge, US, was opened for radionuclide production in 1946. This article summarises the history of the application of radionuclides in science and medicine internationally and in Norway until now.