Page 176 - Age of Peace Goodword.indd

Universal Peace Centre

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lfred Nobel (1833 – 1896) who was born in Stockholm,
ASweden, worked at his father’s arms factory as a young
man. Intellectually curious, he went on to experiment with
chemistry and explosives, finally developing the use of
dynamite. Thanks to his acumen as an industrialist and
the patents he took out on explosives, Nobel became a
multimillionaire.
In 1864 there was a lethal blast in his nitroglycerine
factory, in which his younger brother and several other people
were killed. A French newspaper mistakenly thought it had
been Alfred Nobel himself who had died and it published his
obituary under the title: The Merchant of Death is Dead. The
obituary said:
‘Dr Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to
kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.’
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When Nobel read this, he was shocked. He began thinking
about how to improve his badly damaged image and decided
to leave behind his enormous fortune to fund a set of prizes
named after him. Thus, in his last will, Nobel bequeathed 94%
of his total assets, 31 million Swedish kronor (about 186 million
US dollars), to establish and endow the five Nobel Prizes. The
Nobel Prize organization has come to be known for giving
awards to the greatest achievements throughout the world in
the field of peace and other disciplines.
Alfred Nobel’s plan of image building was a great success.
Today the world knows him as a great promoter of peace. The

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