On December 10, 1896, the Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel passed away.

In his will, he gifted most of his estate for the creation of a prize that rewarded people for

excellence in various forms of human endeavor. Over a hundred years later, the prize he created is one of the most prestigious awards that are given out in the world.

Learn more about the Nobel Prize, how they were created, and how they work on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. If you know anything about the history of the Nobel Prize and why it was created, you probably know part of the story, but probably not the whole story.

The story begins with the man whose name is on the prize, Alfred Nobel.

Nobel was born on October 21st, 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden. Nobel. When he was nine his family moved to St. Petersburg, Russia.

There his father found success operating a small factory that made tools and explosives.

He did a good business fulfilling weapons contracts from the Russian government.

With his father's successful armaments business, willing weapons contracts from the Russian government.

With his father's successful Armaments business, Alfred's family was able to hire private tutors

for him and provide him with a top-notch education.

He became proficient in six languages, Swedish, French, Russian, English, German, and Italian.

When he came of age he worked at a laboratory in Paris for two years and traveled extensively.

However, he returned to St. Petersburg to work in his father's factory.

He worked there until his father went bankrupt in the aftermath of the Crimean War.

From there he returned to Sweden where he began experimenting with the extremely unstable and dangerous substance known as nitroglyserin.

In 1863 he received a Swedish patent for the percussion detonator, which was a safer method of igniting

explosives compared to gunpowder. In

1865 he invented the blasting cap. However in 1864 tragedy struck when a shed

used to prepare nitrogliserin exploded at his factory outside of Stockholm killing five people,

including his brother Emmel. The accident and the death of his brother led him to find safer

methods of handling the inherently dangerous nitroglysterin.

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