  A chronicle describing the historical context and the development of ideas
and experiments leading to the discovery of the back-bending phenomenon in
rapidly rotating atomic nuclei some 50 years ago is presented. The moment of
inertia of some atomic nuclei increases anomalously at a certain rotational
frequency, revealing important clues to our understanding of nuclear structure.
I highlight the decisive interactions and contacts between experimentalists and
theorists, which created the right environment, allowing for the revelation of
an undetected phenomenon in Nature. Finally, I reflect on the key points
allowing for the discovery and particularly point to the importance of
systematic surveys, which in this case investigated the energy levels in heavy
nuclei of a large sample of elements, as well as to the accuracy of the
measurements of the ground state levels made at the time.
