On October 21, 1833, Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm, the son of an engineer and inventor. The family moved to Russia when he was a child, and his father worked on mines and on machinery for the Russian army, and Alfred was taught by private tutors and travelled in Europe, and he learned chemistry in Paris and worked for a time in the United States. He spoke several languages and wrote poetry.
He returned to Sweden in the 1860s and worked on the explosive nitroglycerine, which was powerful but very unstable, and after an explosion at his own factory killed several people, including his brother Emil, he looked for a safer way to handle it. In 1867 he found that nitroglycerine soaked into a clay powder could be shaped and handled safely, and he patented the mixture as dynamite, and he went on to develop blasting gelatine and other explosives. He held more than 350 patents.
His business grew across Europe. He built factories in several countries and moved between them, and he also worked on other things, including synthetic rubber and artificial silk, and he set up companies that later became large firms. The firms grew. He never married. His work had made him rich by the 1890s.
His last will, signed in 1895, left most of his fortune in a fund to be used for prizes each year, and the will caused a dispute among his family and the institutions named in it, and it took several years to be settled. The first Nobel prizes were given in 1901, on the fifth anniversary of his death. The peace prize is awarded in Norway and the others in Sweden.