This Year’s Nobel Prize in Literature and Other Cool Facts
Kudos to the American poet, Louise Glück
Who Was Alfred Nobel?
We know they’re a big deal. We hear about the Nobel Prizes every year. But do we really know much about them or the man who created them?
The Nobel Prizes were first awarded in 1901, an eternal gift from Alfred Nobel. Alfred was an amazing guy, an inventor, chemist, writer, engineer, and businessman.
Alfred Nobel was born in Sweden in 1833. His father, Immanuel Nobel, an engineer and inventor building bridges and experimenting with different techniques for smashing rocks. When Immanuel’s business was forced into bankruptcy, the family moved to Finland, where Alfred’s socialite mother, Andriette, opened a grocery store to keep the family afloat while Immanuel started a mechanical business in St. Petersburg, Russia selling equipment to the Russian Army. Immanuel also devised naval mines for the Tsar so that enemy ships could not get close to the city. Alfred’s father also worked on the design of steam engines and armaments.
It’s not hard to b where Alfred got his innovative urges. Immanuel moved his family to St. Petersburg when Alfred was nine, where he and his brothers received the best in private tutoring. By the time he was seventeen…
