How do you make a "nano" material?

When did we realize about the importance of Nanotechnology? What is the true potential of Nanomaterials? What are the tools that we have for their fabrication and how can we achieve that? The answers to these questions contain the reasons that have nowadays converted Nanotechnology and Nanomaterials into one of the biggest and most ambitious bets of Science and Technology. This article, as the first of a series that will address the different applications of nanomaterials, is an attempt to reflect on those questions in away every reader can understand. The aim is to offer a picture about how the nanotechnology kicked off, what is the actual situation and what can we expect for the next future, something which is really difficult to envisage.