The prestigious award established by Swedish scientist and dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel is the Nobel Prize.
Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm in 1833 and became wealthy through inventions and businesses involving explosives. He patented dynamite in 1867, creating a more manageable explosive by stabilizing nitroglycerin with an absorbent material. Although dynamite was widely used in mining, construction, and engineering, Nobel became increasingly concerned with how his legacy would be remembered.
In his final will, signed in 1895, Nobel directed that most of his fortune fund annual prizes honoring achievements that benefit humanity. The original prizes recognized work in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace. They were first awarded in 1901, five years after Nobel’s death.
The economics award is often grouped with the Nobel Prizes, but it was created later, in 1968, by Sweden’s central bank. Its formal name is the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, so it was not one of Nobel’s original five prizes.