We summarise the important steps and breakthroughs since the first solar neutrino detection by Raymond Davis, Jr. and the subsequent confusion known as the "solar neutrino puzzle", to the two key experiments (Super-K and SNO) that made it very clear that neutrinos, the lightest and most elusive of leptons, undergo a peculiar quantum-mechanical transformation along the path from their source to the detector. To that end, we attempt to describe the basic experimental techniques that made these discoveries possible as well as the important features of the theoretical picture, which subsequently emerged during the same period. and Michal Malinský.