Nobel held more than 300 patents, but his claim to fame before the prizes was having invented dynamite by mixing nitroglycerine with a compound that made the explosive more stable

Dynamite, which became popular in construction, mining and the weapons industry, made Nobel a very rich man

Toward the end of his life, he decided to use his vast fortune to fund annual prizes 'to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind'

The first Nobel Prizes in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace were presented in 1901, five years after his death

In 1968, a sixth prize was created, for economics, by Sweden's central bank. Though Nobel purists stress that the economics prize is technically not a Nobel, it's always presented together with the others