The article is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the geometric field program (GFP) and the 60th anniversary of the discovery of standard model symmetry in elementary particle physics. These events are related to two large-scale programs of building a unified field theory of fundamental interactions. The GFP originated on the basis of the general theory of relativity and the first unified geometric theories of the gravitational and electromagnetic fields of H.Weyl and T. Kaluza (1921). Soon its leader was A. Einstein, whose intense 30-year efforts never led to success, despite the mathematical depth of this program. Particles and their quantum properties within the GFP were to be obtained as solutions to non-linear equations of the unified field. This has also led to a critical Einstein’s relationship to the Copenhagenprobabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics. Despite its defeat, the GFP and the associatedEinsteinian critique of the foundations of quantum mechanics had an important heuristic significance for theoretical physics. The discovery of symmetries of strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions, made in 1961 by M. Gell-Mann, Y. Ne’eman, S. Glashaw and A.Salam, together with the concept of gauge fields proposed earlier by C. Yang and R. Mills (1954), formed the basis of the symmetry gauge quantum field program of building a unified theory of the three fundamental interactions in the elementary particles physics. It was within this program that all theoretical and experimental difficulties were overcome and triumphantly completed by the mid-1970s the construction of electroweak theory and quantum chromodynamics, in other words, the standard model. A firm belief in the beauty and power of the symmetry gauge program was the key to its success. The impact of the GFP on symmetry gauge program has been noted, in particular in relation of the «symmetry ergo dynamics» principle.