The discovery and characterization of Luminescence
Sir John Herschel made the first observation of fluorescence from quinine sulfate in 1845. 
Absorption
Phosphorescence
Wavelength (nm)
Prompt
fluorescence
The term Fluorescence was coined by Sir George Stokes in 1852.
He observed a blue hue from a solution of quinine sulfate.
Stokes used sunlight to illuminate the quinine and observed the emission through a stained glass filter
He showed that the fluorescence emission occurred at a higher wavelength (lower energy)
    than the excitation light. This displacement is now called the Stokes Shift
Edmund Bequerel (1880)
Showed that certain metal ion complexes emit radiation with a very long decay time.
GM
Nicolás Monardes (Sevilla, 1506)  was the first to describe the bluish opalescence of  the water infusion from the wood of a small Mexican tree.
Luminescence