At the age of 12, Woodward obtained some German cultural journals through a German diplomat based in Boston. In one issue, he read an article published by Diels and Alder to testify to the discovery of the reaction. Woodward used a large number of diene addition reactions to construct six-membered rings in his synthetic practice throughout his life. Starting in the 1960s, Woodward worked with Rod Hoffman, a theoretical chemist who had just entered Harvard University to do research, and combined a large number of experimental facts to thoroughly study the stereochemistry of diene addition reactions and related pericyclic reactions. Theoretical research finally led to the birth of the "principle of conservation of molecular orbital symmetry" that shocked the entire organic chemistry community at that time. Woodward died in 1979; Hoffman won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (16-DPA) for this theory in 1981. In 2004, another famous figure in organic synthesis, Corey, publicly claimed that Woodward had plagiarized his thoughts and created the law of conservation of symmetry more than 20 years after Woodward's death. All this makes the diene addition reaction full of fateful legend.

Corey also made great contributions to the diene addition reaction, inventing a Lewis acid-catalyzed asymmetric diene addition reaction, 16-DPA. In the process of synthesizing prostaglandins, Corey tried to use cyclopentadiene as a diene addition reaction to construct the parent ring of prostaglandins, thus inventing an alternative reagent for unstable enones. Danishevsky is best known for inventing the very useful "Danishevsky Diene" for diene addition reactions, and diene addition reactions can be seen everywhere in his total synthesis practice.