In 1901 the first Nobel Prizes were awarded on the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death

Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist, engineer and inventor. He had great success with more than 350 inventions including dynamite.

Explosives had been used in mining for many years which intensified as the demand for coal etc grew due to the industrial age. Initially gunpowder had been used and although it had success in warfare it caused many problems with mining, particularly the smoke it produced which would fill the mines. In the first half of the 19th centuary chemist had developed Nitrocellulose, a new smokeless powder that pound-for-pound was six times more explosive than gunpowder. This was later developed for mining by Swiss chemist Christian Friedrich Schonbein and known as ‘gun cotton’. One year later in 1847 Italian chemist developed a new explosive known as nitro-glycerine which was highly volatile and incredibly dangerous and unpredictable. Despite this it was widely used in demolition and mining with many casualties.

Nobel came from a family of engineers with backgrounds in explosives and Nobel made it his goal to make nitro-glycerine safer. He did this by combining it with an absorbent substance making a safe product known as dynamite. Nobel’s invention saved many live but Nobel also invented many other explosives such as ballistite and gelignite. While gelignite was an even safer form of   dynamite explosive, which ‘sweats’ the volatile nitro-glycerine, ballistite was used specifically for warfare.

On the 12^th of April 1888 Alfred’s brother, Ludvig, died and prompted a mistake by a French newspaper who printed an obituary piece for Alfred entitled “The Merchant of Death is Dead”. Alfred was distraught by the article and fearful of how he would be remembered. On the 27^th of November 1895 Nobel signed a new will which stated that upon his death his fortune would be used to award people who have contributed to the "greatest benefit on mankind" in fields of chemistry, physics peace, medicine and literature.

Alfred Nobel died on the 10^th of November 1896 and a foundation was set up a few months later to administer his request. The first awards were held in 1901 and were very prestigious. Swiss businessman Henri Dunant, who setup the International Committee of the Red Cross, was one of the recipients of the first Nobel Peace Prize while German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen received the Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery of X-rays. Dutch chemist Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff received the first prize for Chemistry while Emil Adolf von Behring (German Physiologist) received the first prize for medicine for his work on diphtheria.

Other notable laureates include William Ramsay, Pierre and Marie Curie (Marie was awarded two), J. J. Thomson, Ernest Rutherford, Albert Einstein and many more.