[en] In the last fifteen years we have learned that nuclear shells have a very broad and pervasive impact on the fission process. In the first few decades after the discovery of nuclear fission, the nucleus was treated as a drop of liquid with smoothly varying attractive and repulsive forces. Although this model still forms the underlying basis for fission, we also observe large effects from the superimposition of shell corrections derived from coupling the quantum states of individual nucleons. The consequences of single-particle coupling on the fission process can be striking and may often overshadow that originating from the intrinsic liquid-drop component. Here, we point out several major features attributable to shell effects in the spontaneous fission (SF) of the lighter actinides, the sudden transition to symmetric fission in the fermium isotopes, and finally new experimental information indicating another transition in the SF of transfermium nuclides due to the disappearance of shell perturbations. In each transition, the abruptness is surprising, and for the moment, such rapid changes in fission behavior lack a theoretical rationale