by Adam Hummel

Created on: December 11, 2008

December 10 is an important day on the calendar that is not always given the attention it deserves.
On December 10, 1901, the first Nobel Prizes were awarded. Alfred Nobel, the man behind the prize, is the inventor of dynamite. In 1888, a newspaper mistakingly printed an obituary for Nobel, thinking that he had died. He read this obituary and realized that he would be remembered forever as the inventor of a substance that could cause much harm to mankind if used in the wrong way. As a result, when he actually passed away in 1896, his will explicitly stated that his estate would be used to set a prize system to award those who excelled in the fields of chemistry, physics, physiology, literature and peace. He passed away December 10, 1896, and five years later, the first Nobel Prizes were handed out. Today, the Nobel Prize is the most distinguished prize anyone can receive, and according to his will, "It is my expressed 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."

or the last 107 years, Nobel Prizes have been awarded to the greatest minds of our times, and they have ensured that people are acknowledged when they do something beneficial for mankind.
On December 10, 1978, 40 years ago today, Anwar Sadat, the President of Egypt, and Menachem Begin, the Prime Minister of Israel, were both awarded Nobel Prizes for making peace with each other. Egypt was the first Arab country to make peace with Israel, and both these heroic men significantly altered the direction of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
What the focus of this entry is meant to be about, is human rights, the responsibility to protect, and overall universal brotherhood, and today should be the day when we focus on these themes as fellow human beings.
1948 was a particularly important year for the Human Rights movement.
On December 9, 1948, the young United Nations ratified the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Raphael Lemkin, the man who coined the term 'genocide' was a lawyer who had devoted his life to making people aware of the issue of genocide. His family in Poland had been slaughtered during the Holocaust, and he spent the years of World War Two in America, and Washington, speaking out against what was occurring in Europe. He knew what the Nazis were doing to the people of Europe, and he told Franklin Roosevelt about what was

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>