5 Nobel Prize Scandals 

Oct 04, 2023, 11:54 IST

Heena Sharma

1. Premature obituary 

Alfred Nobel, the founder of the Nobel Prizes, was mistaken for dead in an 1888 French newspaper article. The headline read ‘The Merchant of Death is Dead’, referring to Nobel’s invention of dynamite. 

2. Women snubbed?  

The Nobel Prizes have been awarded to over 900 people and organisations, but only 61 of those winners have been women, as per reports. This has led to accusations of discrimination against the Nobel Committees. 

3. Controversial peace prizes 

The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to some controversial figures, such as Yasser Arafat, Henry Kissinger, and Aung San Suu Kyi. These awards have drawn criticism from some people who believe that the recipients do not deserve the prize. 

4. The sexual abuse scandal 

Jean-Claude Arnault, a Frenchman married to a member of the Academy, was accused of sexually abusing multiple women. The scandal led to the postponement of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature. 

5. Adolf Hitler’s nomination for Nobel Peace Prize 

In 1939, a Swedish legislator nominated Adolf Hitler for the Nobel Peace Prize. The nomination was made as a joke, but it was not well-received. The Nobel Committee quickly rejected the nomination.

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