Unveiling the many facets of the atomic nucleus: from Rutherford to exotic nuclei

After a discussion of the early steps in the period 1930-1950 that disclosed the presence of both independent particle and collective effects in the atomic nucleus, we highlight the major advances describing the atomic nucleus within a shell-model context as well as starting from a mean-field approach. We also discuss the importance of symmetries in recognizing the most important degrees of freedom in the nuclear many-body system as well as connecting shell-model and collective model approaches.