09.11.2009 18:00
Nobel Prizes

Did you know what Yasser Arafat, Lech Walesa and Willi Brandt have got in common? They are all winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.

But what is the origin of the Nobel Prizes? In 1895, one year before his death, Swedish industrialist and inventor, Alfred Nobel, signed a will in which he left a large share of his fortune to finance a series of prizes: The Nobel Prizes. These prizes are awarded annually in the fields of chemistry, physics, literature, physiology or medicine, and peace. The winner, the Nobel laureate, receives a diploma, a medal and a cash prize. The main awards ceremony is held in Stockholm, Sweden, each year on the anniversary of Nobel's death - the first award ceremony took place on December 10, 1901.

Nobel's will also stated that a Prize for Peace should be awarded by a committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament (when Alfred Nobel was alive, Norway and Sweden were united under one monarch - Norway didn't become an independent country until 1905). The peace prize should be given to the person who ... "during the preceding year ... shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses "..

To see the list of people who have, since the first prizes were awarded in 1901, won the Nobel Peace prize, click on:

Did you know these facts about the Nobel Prizes?

Alfred Nobel, the originator of the Nobel Peace prize, was the inventor of dynamite.
Winston Churchill won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953.
The Curie family won five Nobel Prizes: Pierre and Marie in Physics in 1901, Marie in Chemistry in 1911, daughter Irene and her husband Frédéric Joliot-Curie in Chemistry in 1935, and Henry Labouisse, who was married to Pierre and Marie's daughter Eve, accepted an award on behalf of UNICEF in 1965.
As part of his divorce settlement, the money which Albert Einstein received for his Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 went to his ex-wife, Mileva Maric.
Four US presidents have won the Nobel Peace Prize: Theodore Roosevelt (1906), Woodrow Wilson (1919), Jimmy Carter (2002) and Barack Obama (2009).
The International Committee of the Red Cross has won the Peace Prize three times - in 1917, 1944 and 1963.
Indian civil rights leader and pacifist Mahatma Gandhi never won the Nobel Peace Prize, although he was nominated in 1937, 1938, 1939 and 1947. (The Peace Prize was not awarded during the war years.)
Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini were all nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. (Nomination requires the support of only one qualified person.)
Only one person has ever refused the Nobel Peace Prize - the Vietnamese politician Le Duc Tho, who shared the 1973 Peace Prize with US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger for negotiating the Vietnam Peace Accord. Le Doc Tho refused to accept the prize, giving the situation in Vietnam as his reason.
A top Italian singer and composer Loriana Lana has written a song called "Peace can" to support Berlusconi's candidacy for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. In the video of the song, Berlusconi is seen with the people of the quake-stricken city of L'Aquila, saluting Italian troops and meeting world leaders.

Were you surprised to read that Winston Churchill won a Nobel Prize for Literature? Early on in his career, he worked as a newspaper journalist. Can you name other Literature prize winners?

To see a list of winning authors, click on