In 1968, a man named Gabriele Veneziano was working on finding a way to explain certain properties of the strong force when he stumbled upon a 200-year-old formula by the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler which described the properties well. This formula was called the Euler beta-function. It worked, but no one knew why. That was until 1970 when Yoichiro Nambu, Holger Nielsen, and Leonard Sussking showed that if elementary particles were thought of as tiny, vibrating one-dimensional loops, the beta-function would describe the interactions perfectly. All was well until the 1970s when some experimental observations proved certain predictions made by the string theory incorrect. At the same time, quantum chromodynamics was emerging which had more success, so the string idea faded into the woodwork.

Nonetheless, a few researchers continued to work on it. They found that certain configurations of string matched the properties of gluons (messenger-particles of the strong force). The problem was, they also found many other arrangements that had nothing to do with the strong force. Then in 1974, John Schwarz and Joël Scherk found that certain vibrational patterns matched characteristics that a graviton was predicted to have. The two suggested that string theory had failed the first time because theorists had been too conservative. Instead of being only a theory of the strong force, they said, it was also a quantum theory of gravity.

During the late 1970s and early 80s, studies were conducted that found problems dealing with quantum mechanics in string theory. Again, things looked grim for string theory. Finally in 1984 the problem was resolved in a monumental paper by Schwarz and Michael Green showing that string theory could envelop even more than originally believed - all matter and the four forces.

The period between 1984 and 1986 is known as the first superstring revolution. During this time, many physicists turned their attention to string theory, abandoning their former projects. They found that many things uncovered by the standard model appeared naturally in string theory. In the late 80s and early 90s, there was a lapse in progress. The approximate equations weren't enough anymore. They were so difficult to solve, physicists were faced with a seemingly insurmountable barrier. Then, at the 1995 Strings conference, Edward Witten announced a plan to get past this hurdle and launched the second superstring revolution.