Nobel Prize

For four decades Lester Bowles Pearson (April 23, 1897-1972) has been noted for his diplomatic sensitivity, his political acumen, and his personal popularity. He is affectionately called «Mike», a nickname given to him by his flying instructor in World War I, who discarded «Lester» as being insufficiently bellicose. Born in Toronto of Irish stock on…

Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.), thirty-ninth president of the United States, was born October 1, 1924, in the small farming town of Plains, Georgia, and grew up in the nearby community of Archery. His father, James Earl Carter, Sr., was a farmer and businessman; his mother, Lillian Gordy, a registered nurse. He was educated…

Jane Addams (born Laura Jane Addams, September 6, 1860-May 21, 1935) won worldwide recognition in the first third of the twentieth century as a pioneer social worker in America, as a feminist, and as an internationalist. She was born in Cedarville, Illinois, the eighth of nine children. Her father was a prosperous miller and local…

Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei is the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an intergovernmental organization that is part of the United Nations system. He was appointed to the office effective 1 December 1997, and reappointed to a third term in September 2005. From 1984, Dr. ElBaradei was a senior staff member of the…

Arthur Henderson (September 13, 1863-October 20, 1935) was born in Glasgow, the son of David Henderson, a manual worker. When his father died in 1872, leaving the family in poverty, Arthur left school to work in a photographer’s shop. Upon his mother’s remarriage the family moved to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where Arthur returned to school for three…

Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld (July 29, 1905-September 18, 1961) was the youngest of four sons of Agnes (Almquist) Hammarskjöld and Hjalmar Hammarskjöld, prime minister of Sweden, member of the Hague Tribunal, governor of Uppland, chairman of the Board of the . In a brief piece written for a radio program in 1953, Dag Hammarskjöld…

Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck, Germany, in December, 1913. He was educated in Lübeck and in Oslo after escaping Nazi persecution in Germany. After leaving Germany, he continued his work against Nazism through international cooperation and frequent visits to various European countries. He had close links with German anti-Nazi forces and for some time…

The «father» of socialism in Sweden, Karl Hjalmar Branting (November 23, 1860-February 24, 1925) was born in Stockholm, the only child of Professor Lars Branting, one of the principal developers of the Swedish school of gymnastics. He was educated at the exclusive Beskow School in Stockholm, passing his matriculation examination at the age of seventeen,…

Kofi A. Annan of Ghana, the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations, is the first to be elected from the ranks of UN staff. His first five-year term began on 1 January 1997 and, following his subsequent re-appointment by the UN Member States, he will begin a second five-year term on 1 January 2002. As…

“Banker to the Poor”Professor Muhammad Yunus established the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in 1983, fueled by the belief that credit is a fundamental human right. His objective was to help poor people escape from poverty by providing loans on terms suitable to them and by teaching them a few sound financial principles so they could…