Story Highlights
- historical event: Alfred Nobel’s obituary was published in a French newspaper by mistake. In it, he was labeled as “the merchant of death”. That prompted him to sign an unusual will.
The inventor of dynamite Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament on this day, It stipulated that, after his death, 94% of his total wealth is to be used for the annual award ceremony in five areas of human activity (physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace-making). Nobels’s foundation would be worth approximately 200 million U.S. dollars in today’s currency.
Alfred was prompted to such a move by the guilt he felt over the invention of dynamite and its use in weapons production. He was particularly alarmed by his own obituary, which was mistakenly published in a French newspaper at the time when his brother died. In this obituary he was called “the merchant of death”. This encouraged him to think about how he wanted to be remembered.
