Fact #03

By Siddharth Jain

The Nobel Prizes were founded by Alfred Nobel- the Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor, businessman, and philanthropist. He had 355 different patents, Dynamite being most popular of them which he invented in 1866.

In 1888 Alfred’s brother Ludvig died while visiting Cannes and a French newspaper erroneously published news of Alfred’s death instead of his brother’s and criticised him for the invention of dynamite. This shook him deeply. He wanted to change world’s perception about him and did not want to be remembered for inventing tool of mass destruction. So, on 27th November 1895, Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament, giving 94% share of his fortune to a series of prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature and Peace — the Nobel Prizes.

Nobel prizes were first awarded in 1901. Nobel in economics was later established by Sweden’s central bank in 1968 in memory of Alfred Nobel. Since then they are awarded every year on 10th December.