Today I found out Alfred Nobel, who left most of his fortune to start the Nobel Prizes, was once nicknamed “The Merchant of Death”.

The “Merchant of Death” title was given to him due to Nobel inventing, and making most of his vast fortune off of, dynamite and other types of explosives, such as “ballistite”, which was the precursor to quite a lot of military grade explosive devices.

Nobel came up with the idea of using his money for these annual prizes after his brother, Ludvig, died in 1888 and a French newspaper mistakenly thought it had been Alfred Nobel himself who died.  The newspaper published the obituary under the title: “The Merchant of Death is Dead”, going on to state: “Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.”

When Nobel read this, he began thinking of how to improve his public image after his death and decided on leaving his enormous fortune to fund a set of prizes named after himself. The Nobel Prizes were created as awards for people who made the greatest contributions to mankind in subjects that interested Nobel, namely Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature and Peace.

Nobel did a lot of his own work in Physics and Chemistry and was an enthusiast of various literature of the day.  He also saw the benefit to advancements in medicine. The “peace” prize was thought to have been suggested and promoted by his former lover and secretary Bertha Kinsky, who later won the award in 1905, just a few years after the Nobel Prizes were established.  The idea of a peace award appealed to him because of his reputation as a war monger, and the fact that a huge point to the Nobel Prizes, as stated, was to fix his reputation as a “Merchant of Death”.

Bonus Facts:

• Alfred Nobel invented around 355 things, most notable was his invention of dynamite, in 1867, which he was originally going to call “Nobel’s Safety Powder”, as it was basically a safer version of nitroglycerin and he was attempting to improve his image as a maker of dangerous explosives. He ultimately went with “dynamite”, which was derived from the Greek for “power”.
• All total, Nobel left 94% of his fortune to be used towards the Nobel Prizes. His total fortune, adjusted for inflation, would be worth about $250 million today.
• Along with the group setup to select the winners of the Nobel Prizes, a separate group, The Nobel Foundation, was founded to manage Nobel’s money.  To date, along with annually bequeathing money to award winners, The Nobel Foundation has grown Nobel’s assets up to around half a billion dollars.

source:::::todayifoundout.com

natarajan