Malala Yousafzai is the perfect embodiment of everything we think and hope for when we imagine a potential Nobel Prize winner. At age 11, she began blogging for the BBC to describe what girls' lives were like under an oppressive Taliban government in Pakistan. In October 2012, an anonymous man shot Malala three times in the face at point-blank range while waiting for a school bus. She was 12 years old at the time. Miraculously, Malala not only survived, but thrived, and has since become one of the world's most celebrated and celebrated advocates for children's rights. Especially the rights of oppressed young women. Malala won the Nobel Prize in 2014 when she was 17 years old.
The Nobel Prizes have been awarded every year since 1901 to honor people who have made important cultural and / or scientific advances in the fields of peace, chemistry, physics, physiology or medicine, and literature. Notable winners of the Peace Prize include Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr and now Malala Yousafzai.
So who was Alfred Nobel And how did you come to have the most revered international award on the planet named in your honor? Was he a human rights defender? No. A doctor who cured a terrible disease? No. An international crusader against war? In fact, almost the opposite. Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist who invented a little thing called dynamite. And while that may sound like a harmless invention to us today, during his lifetime, Alfred was considered an evil scientist who made a great fortune from the deaths and misery of other people. That memory changed thanks to a small confusion of obituaries in a French newspaper and a very guilty conscience …
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Early life and inventions
Alfred Bernhard Nobel was born on October 23, 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden. He had seven siblings and grew up in an impoverished family. The family was so poor that only four of the eight surviving Nobel children passed childhood. His father was an engineer and inventor who fueled Alfred's interest in explosives and chemistry from a young age.
In order to improve his lot, the family moved to Saint Petersburg, Russia in 1837. As the years passed, Alfred's father had moderate success as the owner of a factory that made parts for machines. Successful enough to be able to pay private tutors for Alfred to help develop his now rabid passion for chemistry. The tutors also helped Alfred speak English, Russian, French, and German.
Alfred Nobel / AFP / Getty Images
At age 18, Alfred moved to the United States to continue his chemistry study. In 1857, at the age of 24, he applied for his first patent for a gas meter. In 1859, the entire Nobel family returned to Stockholm. Back in Sweden, Alfred launched himself into the world of explosives and detonators. He was especially fascinated by a recently discovered extremely volatile, colorless, oily explosive liquid, known as nitroglycerine.
On September 3, 1864, a nitroglycerin factory on the outskirts of Stockholm exploded and killed five workers. One of the workers was Alfred's younger brother, Emil. The tragedy did not stop Alfred, but inspired him to seek to develop a more stable form of explosive.
In 1867, after three consecutive years of hard work, Alfred, 34, invented and patented a substance that was much more stable (and actually much more explosive) than nitroglycerin. He called the new substance dynamite. The name was a reference to the ancient Greek word for power, dynamis.
Alfred, who was a lifelong pacifist, initially envisioned that dynamite would be used primarily in mining and construction projects. But unsurprisingly, people quickly discovered that dynamite was an extremely effective (and bloody) weapon of war.
As royalties for the invention came from around the world, Alfred and his brothers invested the money in oil fields near the Caspian Sea. The remaining three Nobel brothers became immensely wealthy, but none more so than Alfred. During his life Alfred received 350 patents and hypocritically used his royalties to open 100 arms factories in Sweden and Russia.
Merchant of death
On April 12, 1888, Alfred's brother Ludvwig died in France. Upon learning of the death, several French newspapers accidentally printed obituaries for Alfred. The headline of one of these obituaries reads: "Le Marchand de la Mort est Mort". In English: "The merchant of death is dead"
Understandably, Alfred was surprised to find himself reading his own obituary. Apparently, he hadn't clicked that his life would be remembered with such contemptuous contempt, either. This sentiment shook Alfred Nobel to the core. He immediately called on attorneys to make some changes to his will, which until then was designed to benefit only his direct heirs.
Alfred Nobel died of a cerebral hemorrhage at his villa in San Remo, Italy, eight years later, on December 10, 1896. He was 63 years old. To everyone's amazement, Alfred designated 94% of his assets would be used to establish a new charitable foundation. The newly formed Nobel Foundation will award annual prizes to those who have completed the "greatest benefit to humanity in physics, chemistry, peace, physiology or medicine, and literature."
That 94% equals SEK 31.2 million. After adjusting for inflation, the donation was equal to approximately $ 200 million after adjusting for inflation. With interest and appreciation, today the Nobel Foundation controls assets that are worth approximately $ 560 million.
Since the first prize was awarded in 1901 (to Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, the man who discovered X-rays), the Nobel Foundation has awarded 835 people: 791 men and 44 women. Today's winners each receive a gold medal (18 carats and 196 grams of gold), a diploma and a $ 1.2 million check.
Because of your generosity, today, when most people hear the name "Nobel", they think of words like "peace", "progress" and "science". We no longer hear his name and think of words like "death", "destruction" and "misery". If you think about it, setting up the Nobel Prize might be the most expensive cure for a guilty conscience in human history!