Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm in 1833.

As a boy, he moved to Russia. There he was taught at home by a private tutor until he was 16.

He began working in his father's munitions factory when he was only a boy.

When nitroglycerine was discovered in the 1850s, Nobel was eager to find uses for it. He returned to Sweden and began working in an explosives research laboratory with his brother Emil.

Some of the explosives there worked far too well, and in 1864 the lab blew up killing Emil. Despite the tragedy, Nobel kept experimenting with explosives.

In 1867, he invented dynamite. The invention brought him fame and fortune.

He did not want to be remembered solely as the man who invented art explosive, so Nobel used his money to endow a price each year to a person who has bestowed a great benefit on mankind.

The most notable of the prizes funded by the dynamite fortune is the Nobel Prize for Peace.