On October 9, 2009, the Nobel Committee in Norway awarded United States President Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize. The committee awarded President Obama the prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”
The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo, Norway and the remaining five Nobel Prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden. Throughout Alfred Nobel's entire life, Sweden and Norway were united in a political union. Accordingly, Nobel spelled out in his will who would determine the recipients including a committee of five persons selected by the Norwegian Parliament to award the Peace Prize. It is for this reason that the locations of the ceremonies of the Nobel Prizes are divided in their current manner.
The four stamps featured here depict American Nobel Peace Prize recipients including, above, the 1982 stamp featuring Ralph Bunche, the first African American Nobel Peace Prize recipient, and the 1940 Famous Americans stamp honoring Jane Addams, the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Below are the two other sitting presidents to be awarded the Peace Prize, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
A Nobel Prize in Economics, not outlined by Alfred Nobel in his will, was established in 1968 after the veriges Riksbank, the Central Bank of Sweden, set up a fund for the prize.
On October 12, 2009, the Noble Committee in Sweden awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics to two American economists: Elinor Ostrom "for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons" and Oliver E. Williamson "for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm."
Elinor Ostrom is the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics.
