The Six Nobel Prizes are traditionally awarded on December 10th each year, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death in 1896. He was a Swedish industrialist to invent dynamite and establish five of the current six prizes in his will.

 

In 1903, Marie Curie became the first woman laureate when she shared half of the physics prize with her husband Pierre. The following year Russian Ivan Pavlov was recognized for his experiment of conditioning a dog to salivate at the sound of a bell. President Theodore Roosevelt was the first American recipient. He received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in mediating the end to the Russo-Japanese war. Rudyard Kipling, the author of "the Jungle Book", won the 1907 Nobel Prize in literature. Albert Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions, especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.

 

In 1945, Sir Alexander Fleming was one of the three men awarded the prize in medicine for the discovery of penicillin. Sir Francis Crick won in 1962 with his colleagues for their description of the DNA helix, helping advance our understanding of life. Mother Teresa received the peace prize in 1979 for her work among India’s poor. The Dalai Lama was awarded the peace prize in 1989. He is seen here at a gathering of peace prize winners to mark the 100 anniversary of the award in 2001. In 1990, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was awarded the peace prize for his aggressive international policies. The following year, Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was recognized...