The notion of quantum information and the field of quantum information science developed as a consequence of fundamental experiments performed in the 1970s and 1980s. This is another example for a phenomenon which happened very often in the history of science, that a significant new technology arises because of fundamental curiosity. In the present case, quantum communication, quantum teleportation, and quantum computation owe their existence to fundamental experiments not performed with any technological goal in mind. Some of the most recent experiments will also be mentioned.