Alfred Bernhard Nobel (October 21, 1833 – December 10, 1896)

Swedish chemist, engineer, and inventor of dynamite, Alfred Nobel used his
fortune posthumously to institute the Nobel Prizes. In his lifetime he issued
350 patents internationally and established 90 armaments factories. He grew
up wealthy after his father invented modern plywood and filed his first patent
himself in 1857, for a gas meter. While studying explosives, a shed he was
using for the preparation of nitroglycerin, exploded at a factory in Heleneborg, 
Stockholm and killed five people, including his younger brother Emil.