I will present an overview of the development of nuclear astrophysics, from its beginnings in the late 1920s, till its maturation in the late '60s. Nuclear astrophysics emerged from the "marriage" of the old science of astronomy with the young discipline of nuclear physics, with a twofold objective: to understand the energy of the Sun and stars and the origin of the chemical elements in the Universe. Its development is intimately connected to the development of particle physics during its early period, but also - to some extent - to the physics of the nuclear weapons in the 1940s. Its history is the result of the work of some of the greatest physicists of the 20th century and it was crowned by two Nobel prizes. In an era of evergrowing specialisation in all scientific disciplines, it is useful for students and scientists alike to gain an elementary knowledge of the history of ideas and of their development in the socio-cultural and technological context of their epoch. Notice: 2017 is the 60th anniversary of the famous "B2FH" paper (Burbidge, Burbidge, Fowler and Hoyle, 1957, Reviews of Modern Physics) which founded the discipline of stellar nucleosynthesis.