Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a technique that has been instrumental in enabling the semiconductor industry to maintain its adherence to Moore’s Law, and is becoming a gamechanger in several other fields. A worldwide voluntary effort called “Virtual Project on the History of ALD”(VPHA), open for everyone with an ALD background to participate, was launched in summer 2013 to explore how the ALD concept was developed; which were the first ALD experiments; when, where, why and by whom they were made. Earlier VPHA outcomes were published at ALD 2014 (accessed through VPHA’s website http://vphald. com); VPHA has made steady progress since then. Here we will present a conclusive recommended reading list of the most significant early ALD publications and briefly review the most important individual works and applications. Acknowledgements: We are grateful for Dr. Tuomo Suntola’s general support during the VPHA and for Dr. Aziz Abdulagatov’s and Annina Titoff’s assistance in initiating it. The VPHA would not have been possible without the recent advances in professional social networking and cloud computing. RLP acknowledges partial funding from the Finnish Centre of Excellence in Atomic Layer Deposition. The author list is intentionally in alphabetical order.