100 years since the discovery of cosmic rays. A brief history

With the words "Cosmic Rays" we mean particles impinging on the earth atmosphere. The existence of these particles was discovered in 1912, i.e. exactly 100 years ago, by the Austrian physicist Victor Hesss. In this contribution I will describe the steps that lead to such a discovery: from the electroscope measurements, showing their spontaneous discharge, to the correct explanation of this results with the existence of charged particles arriving from outside of the atmosphere. Then I will discuss the first steps of experimental particle physics, obtained with experiments performed detecting cosmic rays, that allowed important discoveries as the detection of antimatter and of new subatominc particles as muons and pions.