In 1903 Fredholm published his famous paper on integral equations. Since then linear integral operators have become an important tool in many areas, including the theory of Fourier series and Fourier integrals, approximation theory and summability theory, and the theory of integral and differential equations. As regards the latter, applications were soon extended beyond linear operators. In approximation theory, however, applications were limited to linear operators mainly by the fact that the notion of singularity of an integral operator was closely connected with its linearity.