On This Day - April 13th 1888
Alfred Nobel reads his own obituary, which inspires him to leave the legacy of the Nobel Prizes.
Alfred Bernhard Nobel, born in Stockholm in 21 October 1833, was a Swedish chemist, engineer armaments manufacturer and the inventor of dynamite. Although a dramatist and poet, he became famous for his advances in chemistry and physics, and by the time he died on 10 December 1896, he held over 350 patents and controlled factories and laboratories in 20 countries.
Eight years prior to his death, on 13 April 1888, Nobel opened the newspaper to discover an obituary to himself. Although it was his brother Ludwig who had actually died, the obituary described Alfred Nobel's own achievements, believing it was he who had died. The obituary condemned Nobel for inventing dynamite, an explosive which caused the deaths of so many. It is said that this experience led Nobel to choose to leave a better legacy to the world after his death. On 27 November 1895 at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Nobel signed his last will and testament and set aside the bulk of his enormously wealthy estate to establish the Nobel Prizes, to be awarded annually without distinction of nationality. Nobel died of a cerebral haemorrhage on 10 December 1896.
The Nobel Prize is considered one of the most prestigious awards in the world and includes a cash prize of nearly one million dollars. The fields for which the awards can be given are physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and toward the promotion of international peace. In 1968 the prize field was extended to include economic science.