{"id":9538,"date":"2013-10-28T12:33:41","date_gmt":"2013-10-28T12:33:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/?p=9538"},"modified":"2013-11-14T12:05:57","modified_gmt":"2013-11-14T12:05:57","slug":"the-man-behind-the-nobel-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/2013\/10\/the-man-behind-the-nobel-prize\/","title":{"rendered":"The man behind the Nobel Prize"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Alfred Nobel was born in Sweden in 1833. An interest in explosives led to Nobel patenting dynamite in 1867, which was safer to handle than earlier explosives. But when a French newspaper accidentally published his obituary while he was still alive &#8211; having confused him with his brother who had died while on a visit to France &#8211; Nobel was horrified to see himself called &#8220;the merchant of death&#8221; and set about creating a more positive legacy for himself.<\/span><span style=\"font-size: small;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">He left a large part of his considerable fortune to create five prizes to be awarded each year &#8220;to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind&#8221;. His bequest was to be invested by his benefactors, with the interest funding the prizes. &#8220;The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts,&#8221; he wrote in his will, &#8220;which shall be apportioned as follows: one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction; and one part to the person who 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.&#8221;<\/span><span style=\"font-size: small;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">He also decreed that nationality should not be a consideration &#8220;but that the most worthy shall receive the prize&#8221;.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alfred Nobel was born in Sweden in 1833. An interest in explosives led to Nobel patenting dynamite in 1867, which was safer to handle than earlier explosives. But when a French newspaper accidentally published his obituary while he was still alive &#8211; having confused him with his brother who had died while on a visit [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10673,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[161,40,9,91],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9538"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10673"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}