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This paper deals first with the early, although incomplete, history of photoinhibition, of 'non-QA-related chlorophyll (Chl) a fluorescence changes', and the xanthophyll cycle that preceded the discovery of the correlation between non-photochemical quenching of Chl a fluorescence (NPQ) and conversion of violaxanthin to zeaxanthin. It includes the crucial observation that the fluorescence intensity quenching, when plants are exposed to excess light, is indeed due to a change in the quantum yield of fluorescence. The history ends with a novel turn in the direction of research — isolation and characterization of NPQ xanthophyll-cycle mutants of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii Dangeard and Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh., blocked in conversion of violaxanthin to zeaxanthin, and zeaxanthin to violaxanthin, respectively. In the second part of the paper, we extend the characterization of two of these mutants (npq1, which …