As the Nobel Prize announcements are due to come out soon, it would be good if you knew your Nobel history. Lawrence Altman for the NYTimes has an excellent article on it. Money quote:

Yet in a little known story, the Nobel Prizes, the first of which will be announced on Monday, almost never came to be, largely because of the unsophisticated way Nobel drew up his will. It was flawed and legally deficient because he lived in many places and never established a legal residence. Nobel resided for many years in France, made intermittent visits to a home in Sweden and amassed assets in many countries before dying of a stroke at his villa in Italy.

To secret Nobel's French assets to the Swedish consulate in Paris before claims might be made on them there, the will's principal executor literally sat on Nobel's millions as he rode a horse-drawn cab through Paris. "I sat with a revolver at the ready in case of a direct attack or a prearranged collision with another vehicle, a trick not unusual among thieves in Paris at the time," the executor, Ragnar Sohlman, wrote in "The Legacy of Alfred Nobel," which was published in English in 1983.

Large philanthropic gifts to science were rare in Nobel's day. Moreover, establishing annual international prizes in any field was novel. And controversial. News of Nobel's plan sent shockwaves through Sweden with the intensity of a dynamite blast.

Bitter members of Nobel's largely disinherited family fought the will in court. Scorn was heaped on Nobel's gift, the equivalent of $9.5 million and one of the largest fortunes of his time, by the king of Sweden, Oscar II; newspapers; political leaders; and other Swedes.

Nobel's earnings came from his 355 patents and factories in many countries. Swedish leaders vehemently opposed dispersing a Swedish fortune to the rest of the world. Among their reasons: it was immoral, particularly at a time when many Swedes were impoverished.

King Oscar II changed his mind after the Nobel Foundation was established in 1900, in part because he thought publicity about the prizes might benefit Sweden. He was too ill to attend the first ceremony in 1901, said Dr. Hans Jornvall, an official at the Nobel Foundation. Starting in 1902, Oscar II and his royal successors have handed the prizes to the laureates on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death.

Read the whole thing.