The Nobel Peace Prize 1964 The Nobel Peace Prize 1964 Martin Luther King Jr. The Nobel Peace Prize 1964 Martin Luther King Jr. The Nobel Peace Prize 1964 was awarded to Martin Luther King Jr.. Photos: Copyright © The Nobel Foundation Share this: To cite this page MLA style: "The Nobel Peace Prize 1964". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 18 Jan 2017. < Nobel Peace Prize (1964) Nobel Peace Prize (1964) On the morning of 14 October 1964, Martin Luther King, sleeping in an Atlanta hospital room after checking in for a rest, was awakened by a phone call from his wife, Coretta Scott King , telling him that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. Although many in the United States and abroad praised the selection, segregationist Eugene ‘‘Bull’’ Connor called it ‘‘scraping the bottom of the barrel’’ (‘‘Cheers and Scorn’’).

Presenting the award to King in Oslo, Norway, that December, the chairman of the Nobel Committee praised him for being ‘‘the first person in the Western world to have shown us that a struggle can be waged without violence. He is the first to make the message of brotherly love a reality in the course of his struggle, and he has brought this message to all men, to all nations and races’’ (Jahn, ‘‘Presentation,’’ 332). The Nobel Prize was endowed in 1895 by Alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist and the inventor of dynamite. Annual awards in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace began in 1901. The winner of the Peace Prize is selected by a committee appointed by the Norwegian Parliament from nominations submitted by past winners and other select persons. King was nominated by the American Friends Service Committee , which had received the prize in 1947. King departed for Oslo on 4 December 1964, stopping in London for three days to preach at St. Paul’s Cathedral and meet with leaders of the peace community. He was accompanied on his trip by a group of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) staff and members of his family.

King accepted the prize on 10 December, in the name of the thousands of people in the civil rights movement who constituted what he termed a ‘‘mighty army of love’’ (King, ‘‘Mighty Army of Love’’). He called the award, ‘‘a profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence andoppression,’’ and discussed ways to overcome the evils of racial injustice, poverty, and war (King, ‘‘Address,’’ 106). Recognizing that SCLC played only one part in the movement, King shared the $54,000 monetary prize with leading civil rights groups, giving $25,000 to the Gandhi Society for Human Rights , $12,000 to SCLC, and splitting the remainder among the Congress of Racial Equality , the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the National Council of Negro Women , the National Urban League , and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee .

King was feted at events in Europe and at home, where he praised the volunteers in the movement who would never be publicly recognized but who were critical to the success of the nonviolent struggle. King described the award as a reminder to civil rights workers that ‘‘the tide of world opinion is in our favor,’’ and pledged to ‘‘work even harder to make peace and brotherhood a reality’’ (King, ‘‘Mighty Army of Love;’’ King, 27 January 1965). When King decided to speak out against the Vietnam War in April 1967, he reflected on this promise, calling the prize a ‘‘commission,’’ that required him to go ‘‘beyond national allegiances’’ to speak out for peace (King, ‘‘Beyond Vietnam,’’ 145). Sources ‘‘Cheers and Scorn for Nobel Award,’’ New York Times, 15 October 1964. Gunnar Jahn, ‘‘Presentation,’’ in Nobel Lectures, eds. Haberman, vol. 3, 1972. King, ‘‘Acceptance Address for the Nobel Peace Prize,’’ in A Call to Conscience, eds.

Carson and Shepard, 2001. King, ‘‘Beyond Vietnam,’’ in A Call to Conscience, eds. Carson and Shepard, 2001. King, ‘‘Mighty Army of Love,’’ New York Amsterdam News, 7 November 1964. King, ‘‘The Struggle for Racial Justice,’’ 27 January 1965, NF-GEU. King wins Nobel Peace Prize - Oct 14, 1964 - HISTORY.com King wins Nobel Peace Prize Share this: King wins Nobel Peace Prize Author King wins Nobel Peace Prize URL Publisher A+E Networks African American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent resistance to racial prejudice in America. At 35 years of age, the Georgia-born minister was the youngest person ever to receive the award. Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta in 1929, the son of a Baptist minister. He received a doctorate degree in theology and in 1955 organized the first major protest of the civil rights movement: the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Influenced by Mohandas Gandhi, he advocated nonviolent civil disobedience to racial segregation. The peaceful protests he led throughout the American South were often met with violence, but King and his followers persisted, and their nonviolent movement gained momentum. A powerful orator, he appealed to Christian and American ideals and won growing support from the federal government and northern whites. In 1963, he led his massive March on Washington, in which he delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” address. In 1964, the civil rights movement achieved two of its greatest successes: the ratification of the 24th Amendment, which abolished the poll tax, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited racial discrimination in employment and education and outlawed racial segregation in public facilities. In October of that year, King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He donated the prize money, valued at $54,600, to the civil rights movement. In the late 1960s, King openly criticized U.S. involvement in Vietnam and turned his efforts to winning economic rights for poor Americans.

By that time, the civil rights movement had begun to fracture, with activists such as Stokely Carmichael rejecting King’s vision of nonviolent integration in favor of African American self-reliance and self-defense. In 1968, King intended to revive his movement through an interracial “Poor People’s March” on Washington, but on April 4 he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, by escaped white convict James Earl Ray, just a few weeks before the demonstration was scheduled to begin. Related Videos The Nobel Peace Prize 1964 - Presentation Speech Presentation Speech The Nobel Peace Prize 1964 Martin Luther King Jr. Award Ceremony Speech Presentation Speech by Gunnar Jahn * , Chairman of the Nobel Committee on 10 December 1964 Not many years have passed since the name Martin Luther King became known all over the world. Nine years ago, as leader of the Negro people in Montgomery in the state of Alabama, he launched a campaign to secure for Negroes the right to use public transport on an equal footing with whites. But it was not because he led a racial minority in their struggle for equality that Martin Luther King achieved fame. Many others have done the same, and their names have been forgotten.

Luther King's name will endure for the way in which he has waged his struggle, personifying in his conduct the words that were spoken to mankind: Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also! 1 Fifty thousand Negroes obeyed this commandment in December, 1955, and won a victory. This was the beginning. At that time Martin Luther King was only twenty-six years old; he was a young man, but nevertheless a mature one. His father is a clergyman, who made his way in life unaided and provided his children with a good home where he tried to shield them from the humiliations of racial discrimination. Both as a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and as a private citizen, he has been active in the struggle for civil rights, and his children have followed in his footsteps. As a boy Martin Luther King soon learned the role played by economic inequality in the life of the individual and of the community. From his childhood years this left its indelible mark on him, but there is no evidence to suggest that as a boy he had yet made up his mind to devote his life to the struggle for Negro rights.

He spent his student years in the northern states, where the laws provided no sanction for the discrimination he had encountered in the South, but where, nevertheless, black and white did not mix in their daily lives. Yet living in the northern states - especially in a university milieu - was like a breath of fresh air. At Boston University, where he took a doctor's degree in philosophy, he met Coretta Scott, who was studying singing. She was from his own state of Alabama, a member of the black middle class which also exists in the South. The young couple, after being married, were faced with a choice: should they remain in the North where life offered greater security and better conditions, or return to the South? They elected to go back to the South where Martin Luther King was installed as minister of a Baptist congregation in Montgomery. Here he lived in a society where a sharp barrier existed between Negroes and whites. Worse still, the black community in Montgomery was itself divided, its leaders at loggerheads and the rank and file paralyzed by the passivity of its educated members. As a result of their apathy, few of them were engaged in the work of improving the status of the Negro.

The great majority were indifferent; those who had something to lose were afraid of forfeiting the little they had achieved. Nor, as Martin Luther King discovered, did all the Negro clergy care about the social problems of their community; many of them were of the opinion that ministers of religion had no business getting involved in secular movements aimed at improving people's social and economic conditions. Their task was "to preach the Gospel and keep men's minds centered on the heavenly! " Early in 1955 an attempt was made to unite the various groups of blacks. The attempt failed. Martin Luther King said that "the tragic division in the Negro community could be cured only by some divine miracle!" The picture he gives us of conditions in Montgomery is not an inspiring one; even as late as 1954 the Negroes accepted the existing status as a fact, and hardly anyone opposed the system actively. Montgomery was a peaceful town. But beneath the surface discontent smoldered. Some of the black clergy, in their sermons as well as in their personal attitude, championed the cause of Negro equality, and this had given many fresh confidence and courage. Then came the bus boycott of December 5, 1955.

It looks almost as if the boycott was the result of a mere coincidence. The immediate cause was the arrest of Mrs. Rosa Parks for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. She was in the section reserved for Negroes and was occupying one of the seats just behind the section set aside for whites, which was filled. The arrest of Mrs. Parks not only aroused great resentment, but provoked direct action, and it was because of this that Martin Luther King was to become the central personality in the Negro's struggle for human rights. In his book Stride toward Freedom he has described not only the actual bus conflict, but also how, on December 5 after the boycott had been started, he was elected chairman of the organization formed to conduct the struggle. 2 He tells us that the election came as a surprise to him; had he been given time to think things over he would probably have said no. He had supported the boycott when asked to do so on December 4, but he was beginning to doubt whether it was morally right, according to Christian teaching, to start a boycott.

Then he remembered David Thoreau's essay on "Civil Disobedience" which he had read in his earlier years and which had made a profound impression on him. A sentence by Thoreau 3 came back to him:"We can no longer lend our cooperation to an evil system." But he was not convinced that the boycott would be carried out. As late as the evening of Sunday, December 4, he believed that if sixty percent of the Negroes cooperated, it would prove reasonably successful. During the morning of December 5, as bus after bus without a single Negro passenger passed his window, he realized that the boycott had proved a hundred percent effective. But final victory had not yet been won, and as yet no one had announced that the campaign was to be conducted in accordance with the slogan: "Thou shalt not requite violence with violence." This message was given to his people by Martin Luther King in the speech he made to thousands of them on the evening of December 5, 1955. He calls this speech 4 the most decisive he ever made. Here are his own words: "We have sometimes given our white brothers the feeling that we liked the way we were being treated.

But we come here tonight to be saved from that patience that makes us patient with anything less than freedom and Justice. But, [he continues] our method will be that of persuasion not coercion. We will only say to the people, "Let your conscience be your guide." Our actions must be guided by the deepest principles of our Christian faith ... Once again we must hear the words of Jesus 5 echoing across the centuries: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, and pray for them that despitefully use you." He concludes as follows: "If you will protest courageously and yet with dignity and Christian love, when the history books are written [in future generations], the historians will [have to pause and] say: "There lived a great people - a black people who injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization." This is our challenge and our overwhelming responsibility." This battle cry - for such it was - was enthusiastically received by the audience. This was Montgomery's moment in history, as Martin Luther King calls it. His words rallied the majority of Negroes during their active struggle for human rights.

All around the South, inspired by this slogan, they declared war on the discrimination between black and white in eating places, shops, schools, public parks, and playgrounds. How was it possible to obtain such strong support? To answer this question we must recall the strong position enjoyed by the clergy among the Negroes. The church is their only sanctuary in their leisure hours; here they can rise above the troubles and cares of everyday life. Nor would the appeal that they go into battle unarmed have been followed, had not the blacks themselves been so profoundly religious. Despite laws passed by Congress and judgments given by the American Supreme Court, this struggle has not proved successful everywhere, since these laws and judgments have been sabotaged, as anyone who has followed the course of events subsequent to 1955 knows. Despite sabotage and imprisonment, the Negroes have continued their unarmed struggle. Only rarely have they acted against the principle given to them by requiting violence with violence, even though for many of us this would have been the immediate reaction. What can we say of the young students who sat down in an eating place reserved for whites? They were not served, but they remained seated.

White teenagers mocked and insulted them and stubbed their lighted cigarettes out on their necks. The black students sat unmoving. They possessed the strength that only belief can give, the belief that they fight in a just cause and that their struggle will lead to victory precisely because they wage it with peaceful means. Martin Luther King's belief is rooted first and foremost in the teaching of Christ, but no one can really understand him unless aware that he has been influenced also by the great thinkers of the past and the present. He has been inspired above all by Mahatma Gandhi 6 , whose example convinced him that it is possible to achieve victory in an unarmed struggle. Before he had read about Gandhi, he had almost concluded that the teaching of Jesus could only be put into practice as between individuals; but after making a study of Gandhi he realized that he had been mistaken. "Gandhi" he says, "was probably the first person in history to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction between individuals to a powerful and effective social force ..." In Gandhi's teaching he found the answer to a question that had long troubled him: How does one set about carrying out a social reform? "I found" he tells us, "in the nonviolent resistance philosophy of Gandhi ...

the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom." Martin Luther King has been attacked from many quarters. Greatest was the resistance he encountered from white fanatics. Moderate whites and even the more prosperous members of his own race consider he is proceeding too fast, that he should wait and let time work for him to weaken the opposition. In an open letter in the press eight clergymen reproached him for this and other aspects of his campaign. Martin Luther King answered these charges in a letter written in Birmingham Jail in the spring of 1963. I should like to quote a few lines: "Actually time itself is neutral ... Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts of men, willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation." 7 In answer to the charge that he has failed to negotiate, he replies: "You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to ...

foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue." He reminds them that the Negroes have not won a single victory for civil rights without struggling persistently to achieve it in a lawful way without recourse to violence. When reproached for breaking the laws in the course of his struggle, he replies as follows: "There are two types of laws: just and unjust ... An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law ... An unjust law is a code that a numerical or powerful majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself ... One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty." Martin Luther King also takes the church to task. Even during the bus conflict in Montgomery he had expected that white clergy and rabbis would prove the Negroes' staunchest allies. But he was bitterly disappointed.

"All too many others," he recalls, " have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained-glass windows." It is not difficult to understand Martin Luther King's disappointment with the white church, for what is the first commandment of Christian teaching if not "Thou shalt love thy neighbor?" Yet even if victory is won in the fight against segregation, discrimination will still persist in the economic field and in social intercourse. Realistic as he is, Martin Luther King knows this. In his book Strength to Love he writes: "The Court orders and federal enforcement agencies are of inestimable value in achieving desegregation, but desegregation is only a partial, though necessary, step towards the final goal which we seek to realize, genuine intergroup and interpersonal living ... But something must touch the hearts and souls of men so that they will come together spiritually because it is natural and right ..." True integration will be achieved by true neighbors who are willingly obedient to unenforceable obligations. Martin Luther King's unarmed struggle has been waged in his own country; its result has been that an obdurate, centuries-old, and traditional conflict is now nearing its solution.

Is it possible that the road he and his people have charted may bring a ray of hope to other parts of the world, a hope that conflicts between races, nations, and political systems can be solved, not by fire and sword, but in a spirit of true brotherly love? Can the words of our poet Arnulf Overland 8 come true? The unarmed only can draw on sources eternal. The spirit alone gives victory. It sounds like a dream of a remote and unknown future; but life is not worth living without a dream and without working to make the dream reality. Today, now that mankind is in possession of the atom bomb, the time has come to lay our weapons and armaments aside and listen to the message Martin Luther King has given us through the unarmed struggle he has waged on behalf of his race. Luther King looks also beyond the frontiers of his own country. He says: "More than ever before, my friends, men of all races and nations are today challenged to be neighborly ... No longer can we afford the luxury of passing by on the other side. Such folly was once called moral failure; today it will lead to universal suicide ...

If we assume that mankind has a right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war and destruction. In our days of space vehicles and guided ballistic missiles, the choice is either nonviolence or nonexistence ..." Though Martin Luther King has not personally committed himself to the international conflict, his own struggle is a clarion call to all who work for peace. He is the first person in the Western world to have shown us that a struggle can be waged without violence. He is the first to make the message of brotherly love a reality in the course of his struggle, and he has brought this message to all men, to all nations and races. Today we pay tribute to Martin Luther King, the man who has never abandoned his faith in the unarmed struggle he is waging, who has suffered for his faith, who has been imprisoned on many occasions, whose home has been subject to bomb attacks, whose life and the lives of his family have been threatened, and who nevertheless has never faltered. To this undaunted champion of peace the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament has awarded the Peace Prize for the year 1964. * Mr.

Jahn delivered this speech on December 10, 1964, in the auditorium of the University of Oslo. This text in English translation, with some minor emendations, is taken from Les Prix Nobel en 1964. Dr. King, who was present, received his award from Mr. Jahn, accepting in the name of a civil rights movement determined to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice and terming the award a recognition of non-violence as the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time, the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression. 1. Matthew 5:39 2. Martin Luther King, Jr., Stride toward Freedom, chap. 4 and passim. 3. SeeThe Works of Thoreau, ed. by H.S. Canby (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1946). King's sentence is a paraphrase of Thoreau's main point in the essay "Civil Disobedience". 4. This speech, delivered at the Holt Street Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, is described and excerpted by King inStride toward Freedom, pp.

61-64. 5. Matthew 5:44. "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." 6. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948), Hindu religious leader and Indian nationalist who advocated home rule for India and practiced nonviolent resistance against the British government. 7. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Why We Can't Wait," p. 89. 8. Arnulf Overland From Nobel Lectures , Peace 1951-1970, Editor Frederick W. Haberman, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972 Martin Luther King Wins The Nobel Prize for Peace Martin Luther King Wins The Nobel Prize for Peace Dr. King Is Winner Of Nobel Award Special to The New York Times OTHER HEADLINES Johnson Pledges Moves to Lessen World Tensions: At Alfred E.

Smith Dinner He Hails Improvement in U.S.-Soviet Relations: Tired, He Cuts Speech: Promises Aid to Asians -- Talks at Garden Tonight After Heavy Schedule Goldwater Says Morality Is Demanded by the Nation Eisenhower Finds Silence on Issues: General Calls the Campaign Most Personal He's Seen -- Doubts Vietnam Trip President's Aide Quits on Report of Morals Case: Jenkins Was Arrested Last Week in Capital Y.M.C.A.

-- Is Sent to Hospital Yanks Rout Cards on Home Runs, 8-3; Series Tied at 3-3: Maris, Mantle and Pepitone Connect in Late Innings -- Final Game Today Reds in France Assert Autonomy of World Parties: Assail Meddling in Others' Affairs -- Subservience to Moscow Is Ended: Peking's Views Scored: National Needs Held Basis of Policy -- Plan for New International Opposed Close Vote Seen in Britain Today: Surveys Indicate a Toss-up, but 2 Sides Blame Edge -- 27 Million Due at Polls 2 Detectives Slain in Brooklyn Home; Suspect a Suicide Vatican Council May Go Into 1965: A 4th Session Now Likely -- Pope Will Visit India The Home Run Is the Decisive Weapon as Yankees Beat the Cardinals President Greets Kennedy Warmly: 2 Chat Together and Call on Late President's Wife Oslo, Norway, Oct. 14--The Nobel Peace prize for 1964 was awarded today to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The 35-year-old civil rights leader is the youngest winner of the prize that Dr.

Alfred Nobel instituted since the first was awarded in 1901. The prize honors acts "for the furtherance of brotherhood among men and to the abolishment or reduction of standing armies and for the extension of these purposes." The Norwegian state radio changed its program schedule tonight to broadcast a 30-minute program in honor of Dr. King. In a broadcast from Atlanta, Ga., Dr. King said that he was deeply moved by the honor. Dr. King said that "every penny" of the prize money, which amounts to about $54,000, would be given to the civil rights movement. "I am glad people of other nations are concerned with our problems here," he said. He added that he regarded the prize as a sign that world public opinion was on the side of those struggling for freedom and dignity. He also said he saw no political implications in the award. "I am a minister of the gospel, not a political leader," he said. The United States Ambassador in Oslo, Miss Margaret Joy Tibbetts, said tonight: "As an American and representative of the American people, I want to express joy and gratitude that one of my fellow countrymen has been awarded this prize." She praised the role of Dr.

King "among his fellow countrymen." He is also the 12th American to receive the peace Prize. The first, in 1950, was Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, Under Secretary of the United Nations. In 1960 the former leader of the African National Congress in South Africa, Chief Albert Luthuli, received the award. Dr. King is the 12th American to be awarded the peace prize. Dr. Nobel, the Swedish scientist who established it, was the inventor of dynamite. The award is given by the Norwegian Parliament. The other Nobel prizes--for chemistry, physics, medicine and physiology, and literature--will be awarded in Sweden. The award to Dr. King will be made in Oslo Dec. 10. Tribute to Nonviolence Seen Atlanta, Oct. 14--Dr. King said today that the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to him was a tribute to millions of Americans who followed the precepts of nonviolence. He spoke from a room at St. Joseph's Infirmary here, where he was undergoing a checkup and getting some rest.

"I was deeply gratified to hear the news that I had been chosen for this most significant award," he said, "and I will certainly receive it with great humility and profound appreciation." His wife, Coretta, said: "For many years we have had to contend with the other side. For something like this to happen makes it all worthwhile." Dr. King, who said he would use the money to advance the civil rights movement, is the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an Atlanta-based organization that has programs in voter registration, citizenship training, and leadership development. The organization has affiliates in several Southern cities. Most of them are operated through church groups. "I do not consider this merely an honor to me personally," Dr. King said, "but a tribute to the disciplined, wise restraint and majestic courage of gallant Negro and white persons of goodwill who have followed a nonviolent course in seeking to establish a reign of justice and a rule of love across this nation of ours." Dr.

King said that he felt gratification in knowing that "the nations of the world," in bestowing the prize on him, "recognize the civil rights movement in this country as so significant a moral force as to merit such recognition." After noting that he had not had a general physical checkup in two years, Dr. King said, "I just kind of got rundown." He said the checkup would take about two days, and that he would remain in the hospital for a day or two more "to get some rest." 15 Noteworthy Nobel Prize Nuggets | Mental Floss 15 Noteworthy Nobel Prize Nuggets Like us on Facebook In honor of Nobel Prize season, here are 15 quick stories about the awards. 1. Robert Lucas, winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on the theory of "rational expectations," split his $1 million prize with his ex-wife. If there were a Nobel Prize for Foresight or Timing, I'd nominate her, based on a clause in their divorce settlement from seven years earlier: "Wife shall receive 50 percent of any Nobel Prize." The clause expired on October 31, 1995.

Had Lucas won any year after, he would have kept the whole million. 2. Physicist Lise Meitner, whose work helped lead to the discovery of nuclear fission, was reportedly nominated for the Nobel Prize 13 times without ever winning (though nominations are kept secret, so we don't know for sure). This makes her the Dynasty of the Nobel Prize scene—that show was nominated for 24 Emmy Awards but never won. Other analogies we'd accept: The Color Purple (11 Oscar nominations in 1985, no wins), the Buffalo Bills or Minnesota Vikings (4 Super Bowl losses each) and William Jennings Bryan (three-time Democratic nominee for President, losing twice to McKinley and once to Taft.) 3. In 2007, 90-year-old professor Leonid Hurwicz became the oldest person to ever win (one-third of the Prize in Economics); at 87, writer Doris Lessing became the oldest woman (Literature). 4. DNA expert Kary Mullis "“ 1993 winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "“ was scheduled to be a defense witness in O.J. Simpson's murder trial.

However, Simpson lawyer Barry Scheck felt the prosecution's DNA case was already essentially destroyed, and he didn't want Mullis' personal life to distract jurors (read: he'd expressed an affinity for LSD and surfing.) 5. Nobel Laureates you must know: Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, Elie Wiesel, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, Jimmy Carter, Toni Morrison, William Faulkner, T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, Samuel Beckett, Pierre & Marie Curie, Max Planck and Albert Einstein. 6. Big names who never won: Dmitri Mendeleev, Leo Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Marcel Proust, Mark Twain, Gertrude Stein, Henrik Ibsen, Joan Robinson, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Jules-Henri PoincarÃ©, Raymond Damadian and Mahatma Gandhi. 7.

People who refused the Prize: "¢ Le Duc Tho was awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize with Henry Kissinger for their roles in brokering a Vietnam cease fire at the Paris Peace Accords. Citing the absence of actual peace in Vietnam, Tho declined to accept. "¢ Jean Paul Sartre waved off the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature. His explanation: "It is not the same thing if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre or if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prize winner. A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form." "¢ Afraid of Soviet retribution if he traveled to Stockholm to claim his prize, Boris Pasternak declined to accept the 1958 Prize in Literature, which he'd earned for Doctor Zhivago. The Academy refused his refusal. "This refusal, of course, in no way alters the validity of the award. There remains only for the Academy, however, to announce with regret that the presentation of the Prize cannot take place." His son Yevgeny accepted the prize for his father in 1989.

"¢ Swedish poet Erik Axel Karlfeldt won for Literature in 1918. He did not accept because he was Secretary of the Swedish Academy, which awards the prize. He was given the award posthumously in 1931. This was allowed because the nomination was made before Karlfeldt died—no candidate may be proposed after death. 8. Winners without the greatest reputations: "¢ Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, who won in 1976 for his research in human slow-virus infections, spent 19 months in jail after pleading guilty in 1997 to charges of child molestation. "¢ Johannes Fibiger won in 1926 after discovering parasitic worms cause cancer "“ a breakthrough that turned out to not be true. "¢ Yasser Arafat shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin. This decision caused Nobel Committee member Kare Kristiansen to resign.

"What consequences will result," he asked at the time, "when a terrorist with such a background is awarded the world's most prestigious prize?" "¢ William Shockley won for Physics in 1956 for his role in the invention of the semiconductor, but his support of the eugenics movement alienated the scientific community. Shockley also donated sperm to the Repository for Germinal Choice, a sperm bank developed to spread humanity's best genes. 9. As part of his divorce settlement, Einstein's Nobel Prize money went to his ex-wife, Mileva Maric. 10. The first Nobel Laureates collected 150,800 Swedish kronor (about $15,420 today). The stakes have been raised. This year's prize was $1.5 million "“ shared in the case of multiple winners. 11. Alfred Nobel's will established five categories: Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace. The prize for economics—formally called the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel—was created in 1968 by Sweden's central bank in honor of its 300th anniversary. 12.

The Curie family is a Nobel Prize machine, winning five: Pierre and Marie for Physics in 1901; Marie solo for Chemistry in 1911; daughter Irene and her husband FrÃ©dÃ©ric Joliot-Curie for Chemistry in 1935; and Henry Labouisse, who was married to Pierre and Marie's daughter Eve, accepted on behalf of UNICEF in 1965. 13. Marie Curie's second prize was marred by scandal. Then a widow, Curie had an affair with a married scientist, Paul Langevin "“ a former pupil of Pierre Curie. Love letters were involved, eventually leading to a duel between Langevin and the editor of the newspaper that had printed them (no shots were actually fired.) When it was suggested that she not accept the prize, she wrote a shrewd letter, in which "she pointed out that she had been awarded the Prize for her discovery of radium and polonium, and that she could not accept the principle that appreciation of the value of scientific work should be influenced by slander concerning a researcher's private life." 14.

Alfred Nobel "“ inventor of dynamite "“ may have been inspired to create the Nobel Prize after a premature obituary in a French newspaper called him a "merchant of death." 15. Nobel died on December 10, 1896. The formal awards ceremony is held in Stockholm each year on the anniversary of his death. The first awards show took place on December 10, 1901. (These things take time to plan.) And in case you were wondering just how much of a say Alfred Nobel had in the prize, here's his will: The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: The capital shall be invested by my executors in safe securities and shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.

The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work of an idealistic tendency; and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses. The prizes for physics and chemistry shall be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences; that for physiological or medical works by the Caroline Institute in Stockholm; that for literature by the Academy in Stockholm; and that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Storting. It is my express wish that in awarding the prizes no consideration whatever shall be given to the nationality of the candidates, so that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not. Martin Luther King Jr.

Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech - YouTube Martin Luther King Jr. Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. The interactive transcript could not be loaded. Loading... Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on Jan 15, 2014 Martin Luther King Jr. held his acceptance speech in the auditorium of the University of Oslo on 10 December 1964. Copyright © Norsk Rikskringkasting AS 2012 Category

Question: Who won the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize?
Answer: Martin Luther King Jr