12 Things You May Not Know About the Nobel Prizes

By John Farrier in Everything Else on Jul 1, 2008 at 5:41 pm

Alfred NobelHere’s a list of twelve curious facts about the Nobel Prizes.  For example, however well-deserving, Mohandas Gandhi never won the Nobel Peace Prize, but the prize was once withheld for a year in his honor:

Amazingly, the person probably most likely to have deserved the Nobel Peace Prize was never awarded one. Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi, Indian leader who advocated non-violence in the struggle for Indian independence from colonial rule, never won the award. He was nominated five times, but failed each time. He was assassinated just two days before the nominations for the 1948 prize were due, which, since he was deceased, disqualified him from the nomination and, therefore, the prize.

The Nobel Peace Prize Committee considered selecting Gandhi for the award in spite of the rules, but because he left no legal heirs, they were not sure of who to award the prize to. Instead, the committee elected to withhold the award that year, stating that “there was no suitable living candidate” for the award, a clear reference to the recently-deceased Gandhi.

Image by Flickr user niznoz

Link via Evangelical Outpost


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  1. Josh
    Jul 1st, 2008 at 6:15 pm

    Yet idiots like Al Gore get the award.

  2. Evilbeagle
    Jul 1st, 2008 at 6:28 pm

    Sort of cheapens the award when Al gets one too, Josh. I totally agree.

  3. lindsay
    Jul 1st, 2008 at 6:31 pm

    I heard that there is no Nobel prize in mathematics because Nobel’s wife had an affair with a mathematician!

  4. CheeseDuck
    Jul 1st, 2008 at 7:23 pm

    Seriously, were they joking when they gave Gore the Nobel Peace Prize? What the fuck does global warming have to do with peace.

  5. kid_icarus
    Jul 1st, 2008 at 7:41 pm

    how the hell do i get nominated? if stalin, hitler and mussolini can be nominated and they are bad men, why can’t i?

  6. http://redtubedeutsch.blogspot.com/
    Jul 1st, 2008 at 8:27 pm

    In addition, betray your own country like novelist orhan kemal.

  7. violet
    Jul 1st, 2008 at 8:54 pm

    Well played, Nobel prize committee. I like the harsh/reverent quality of the statement about no suitable living contenders.

  8. bean
    Jul 1st, 2008 at 9:51 pm

    Wow, a German porn site is posting normal comments at Neatorama. That’s a little surreal.

  9. Ari
    Jul 2nd, 2008 at 3:56 am

    Well, if Yassir Arafat and Al Gore can get themselves a Nobel Prize, when is Ahmadinejad going to have his turn in the spotlight?

  10. nevrdull
    Jul 2nd, 2008 at 7:28 am

    gore didn’t get the nobel price, the IPCC did, you imbeciles. the simple fact, that he accepted the price in their lieu didn’t mean it was HIS adward.

  11. Ratz
    Jul 2nd, 2008 at 7:49 am

    The peace prize committee seems to move pretty damned fast compared to that for science. For example, John Hume and David Trimble were awarded nobel peace prizes. However peace in northern ireland hasn’t yet been 100% esatablished. The prize for Watson and Crick for discovering the structure of DNA was awarded years after they’d published and put into useful practice their results.

    With reference to point 9, about giving people malaria to cure syph. It should be pointed out that whilst malaria is a crippling disease, it’s possible to recover from it. Syph on the other hand drives you insane and finally leaves you dead, a problem which is somewhat harder to recover from.

  12. Josh
    Jul 2nd, 2008 at 7:40 pm

    The IPCC is the one who started the whole Global Warming shit and are just 1000s of more idiots. Al Gore just so happens to be one in the litter.

  13. Lionheart
    Jul 2nd, 2008 at 11:29 pm

    I think a true spiritual leader wouldn´t mind if he/she receives a prize or not.


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