… Am I here or there? The newspapers had reported the death of the wrong person by mistake. When he regained his composure, his second thought was to find out what people had said about him. The obituary read; “The merchant of death is dead”, going on to state: “The man, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.”

This man was the ‘Inventor of Dynamite’ and when he read the words”Merchant of Death”, he asked himself a question: “Is this how I am going to be remembered?”. He certainly was disappointed with what he read and became concerned with how he would be remembered. He got in touch with his feelings and decided that this was not the way he would like to be remembered. From that day on, he started working toward peace. His name was Dr Alfred Nobel and he is remembered today by the great ‘Nobel Prize’.

This French newspaper mistakenly reported that Alfred had died when, in fact, it was his brother who died. When Nobel read this, he began thinking of how to improve his public image after his death and decided on leaving his enormous fortune to fund a set of prizes named after himself. He died of a stroke on December 10, 1896.

By Rizwan Saleem