The first Nobel Prize Award Ceremony was held in 1901. The names of the Nobel Laureates had been kept secret and were revealed only on the same day. Experience the very first ceremony through this eyewitness report.
After long protracted negotiations, partly with the French government (which sought to impose a very hefty tax on the Nobel estate) and partly with the Nobel family, the first awarding of five Nobel Prizes could finally take place on 10 December 1901 – four of them given out in Stockholm and one, the Peace Prize, in Christiania, as Oslo was then called. Five years had passed since Alfred Nobel had died in San Remo, on 10 December 1896.
In the days leading up to the awarding of prizes, there was certain tension in the air. The Nobel Laureates’ names had been kept secret – they were not, as now, revealed months in advance. When three distinguished German – speaking gentlemen arrived by train from the south and were taken to the Grand Hotel, it was clear that they must be the Nobel Laureates. International traffic was not as commonplace then as now.
Credit : Nobel Prize
Picture Credit : Google
