Nobel Prize Winners

The Nobel Prize Winners

The Nobel Prize is a set of annual international awards bestowed in several categories by Swedish and Norwegian institutions in recognition of academic, cultural or scientific advances. Began in 1901 and 2017 it was done in Memory of Alfred Nobel founder of the Nobel Prize. Each prize consists of a medal, a personal diploma and a cash award. A person or organization awarded the Nobel Prize is called Nobel Laurette. In ancient Greece, laurel wreaths were awarded to victors as a sign of honor.

Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Macedonia on August 26 1910. Her family was of Albanian descent. At the age of twelve, she felt strongly the call of God. She was born in Skopje (now the capital of the Republic of Macedonia) then part of the Kosovo Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire. After living in Macedonia for eighteen years she moved to Ireland and then to India where she lived most of her life.

Martin Luther King Jr

 Martin Luther King Jr born 15 January, 1929- April 4, 1968 was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using the tactics of nonviolence and civil disobedience based on his christian beliefs and inspired by the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi. King became a civil rights activist early in his career. On October 14, 1964, King received his Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance.

Barack Obama

 Barack Hussein Obama II born August 4, 1961 is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. He is the first African American to have served as a president. Obama was born in 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii, two years after the territory was admitted to the Union as the 50th state. Raised largely in Hawaii, Obama also spent one year childhood in Washington State and four years in Indonesia.

Early life and career

Obama was born on August 4, 1961 at Kapiolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu. He is the first president to have been born in Hawaii, making him the first president born outside of the contiguous 48 states. He was born to a white mother and a black father. His mother Ann Dunham (1942-1995) was born in Wichita, Kansas of mostly English descent, with some German, Irish, Scottish, Swiss and Welsh ancestry. His father Barack Obama Sr (1936-1982) was a married Luo Kenyan man from Nyang’oma Kogelo. In late August 1961, Obama’s mother moved with him to the University of Washington in Seattle for a year. During that time, Obama Sr completed his undergraduate degree in economics in Hawaii in June 1962, then left to graduate school on a scholarship at Harvard University where he earned an M.A in economics. Obama Sr returned to Kenya in 1964 where he married for a third time.

 Desmond Mpilo Tutu OMSG CH is a South African anti-apartheid and social rights activist and Anglican clergyman. He was the first black Archbishop of Cape Town and bishop of the church and the Province of Southern Africa. He was born in October 7, 1931 (age 86) Klerksdorp South Africa. He won the Nobel Peace Prize, Presidential Freedom, Gandhi Peace Prize and Sydey Peace Prize. During 1980s he emerged as one of the most prominent anti apartheid activists within South Africa. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984; the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarism in 1986; the Pacem in Terris Award in 1987; the Sydney Peace Prize in 1999; the Gandhi Peace Prize in 2007 and the Presidential Medal Freedom in 2009.

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela born on 18 July 1918- 5 December 2013 was a South African anti apartheid revolutionary, politician and philanthropist who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country’s first black head of the state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. A Xhosa Mandela was born in Mveso to the Thembu royal family. He studied law at the University of Fort Hare and the University of the Witwatersrand before working as a lawyer in Johannesburg. Mandela served 27 years in prison, initially on Robben Island and later in Pollsmoor prison and Victor Verster Prison. Mandela was a controversial figure for much of his life.

Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat

Muhammad Anwar el- Sadat (25 December 1918-6 October 1981) He was the third president of Egypt serving from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamental army officers on 6 October 1981. He led Egypt in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to regain Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula which Israel had occupied since the Six Day War of 1967, making him a hero in Egypt and for a time the wider Arab World. He engaged in negotiations with Israel culminating in the Egypt Israel Treaty this won him and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin the Nobel Peace Prize, making sadat the first Muslim Nobel laurette. The peace treaty was also one of the primary factors that led to his assassination.

Wangari Maathai

 Wangari Muta Maathai was an internationally renowned Kenyan environmental political activist and Nobel Laureate. She was educated in the United States and Mount St Scholastica (Benedictine College) and the University of Pittsburgh as well as the University of Nairobi in Kenya. In 1997, Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, an environmental non-governmental organization focused on the planting of trees, environmental conversation and women’s rights. She became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace. Maathai was an elected member of parliament and served as an assistant minister for Environment and Natural Resources in the government of President Mwai Kibaki between January 2003 and November 2005. In 2011 Maathai died of his complications from ovarian cancer.

Early life and Education

On 1 April 1940, Maathai was born in the village of Ihithe, Nyeri District, in the central highlands of the colony of kenya. Her family was Kikuyu, the most populous ethnic group in Kenya and had lived in the area for several generations.