In 1895, Alfred Nobel drafted a holograph will, replacing one that left his vast fortune essentially to relatives, servants, and friends. The new will, for which Nobel will be forever remembered, substantially reduced his personal bequests. It directed that his estate be invested conservatively and that the income from these investments be used to establish annual prizes to be awarded with no reservations regarding nationality to those people whose activities are deemed to be of the greatest benefit to humankind in the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace. Nobel’s will was disputed legally for more than three years. Eventually, a system was established for the distribution of the income in the form of Nobel Prizes, the first set of which were awarded in 1901. As the income from the Nobel trust has increased, the size of each award has grown to the point that in 2005, the typical prize was worth over $1.3 million, more than thirty times what the same award had been worth fifty years earlier. The list of Nobel laureates, which has now been expanded to include a sixth field, economics, contains the names of international giants in their fields. The Nobel legacy is great because of the endowment he established to recognize those who contribute most to the benefit of humankind.