When the first Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Henry Dunant of Switzerland (left) and Frederic Passy of France (right) in 1901, the Nobel Commission was divided. Dunant had founded the International Red Cross and, together with Passy, initiated the Geneva Conventions. The commission's members feared that by making war more humane, the Geneva Conventions could make it more acceptable.

US President Theodore Roosevelt was never seen as a pacifist — he had urged war against Spain. After that, he helped Cubans to free themselves from colonialism, but US troops soon arrived in Cuba, ensuring the island remained under de facto US control. Roosevelt received the prize for another commitment: his peace efforts in the Russo-Japanese war.

The 28th US president, Woodrow Wilson, also received a prize "for his contributions to the end of World War I and the founding of the League of Nations," the precursor to the United Nations. But he also believed in the superiority of white people and was a supporter of segregation who praised the Ku Klux Klan.

US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Vietnamese Politburo member Le Duc Tho played a decisive role in the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, aimed at ending the Vietnam War. However, Tho refused to accept the prize. While the US largely withdrew after the accords, the conflict in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia would last another two years.

Egypt's President Anwar al-Sadat (left) joined Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin (right) to agree to peace between the two countries. In 1978, they were honored for the Camp David Agreement. But the prize for Sadat caused a stir: He was a senior member of the secret "Free Officers" who had overthrown King Farouk in 1952.

The blue helmets are the peacekeeping forces of the United Nations. They were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work in 1988. However, the force has come under massive criticism in subsequent years: the troops were accused of sexually abusing women and children and forcing them into prostitution. In the genocide in Rwanda, and in the massacre at Srebrenica, they were blamed for standing idly by.

Although he was regarded as an advocate of apartheid before his time as a South African president, Frederik Willem de Klerk played a key role in the abolition of racial separation in South Africa. He freed Nelson Mandela and other African National Congress politicians from prison, championed the freedom of the press and abolished apartheid laws. In 1993 he and Mandela shared the Nobel Peace Prize.

There was uproar in 1994 when Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat along with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres received the award for their peace efforts in the Middle East. A Norwegian politician resigned in protest from the Nobel Committee, calling Arafat an "unworthy winner."

Both the UN and its secretary-general, Kofi Annan, received the 2001 Nobel Prize "for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world." But critics have accused the UN of not upholding these ideals and of frequent failure. Individual states are able to block resolutions and joint action in the UN Security Council.

Barack Obama had only been US president for nine months when he received the award for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." Critics thought it came much too early. Later, Obama ordered military interventions — including the mission to kill terrorist Osama bin Laden, which was highly controversial under international law.

Liberia's former president, Charles Taylor, was convicted of war crimes tied to thousands of cases of murder, rape and torture. Critics have accused his successor Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, once Taylor's finance minister, of supporting his violence and corruption. But in 2011 she was honored for her "nonviolent struggle for the safety of women." She claimed the prize during her re-election campaign.

Barbed-wire fences, detention, inhumane conditions in refugee camps: Human rights activists have been criticizing the EU's refugee policies for years. Even so, the European Union was honored in 2012 for its "advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe."

Until 2018, the Swedish Academy's 18 members technically held the position for life. That changed when three group members stepped down in protest against the Academy membership of poet Katarina Frostenson, whose husband is accused of sexual harassment. Academy secretary Sara Danius (photo) and Frostenson also left shortly afterwards, leading to the decision to postpone the 2018 award.

While the famous author of "The Satanic Verses" never won the Nobel Prize in Literature, some members of the Swedish Academy felt their organization should denounce Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's fatwa calling for Salman Rushdie's assassination in 1989. The Academy refused to do so, and three members resigned in protest.

He became the first singer-songwriter to obtain the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, shocking quite a few literature purists. Then Dylan didn't even seem that interested by the recognition. He didn't show up at the awards ceremony and simply sent a brief thank-you speech instead of the traditional Nobel lecture. He finally collected his prize in Stockholm in March 2017.

Thomas Mann received the prize in 1929, but it wasn't for his most recent work, "The Magic Mountain" (1924), which the jury found too tedious. The distinction instead recognized his debut novel, "Buddenbrooks" — published 28 years earlier. Time had apparently added to its value. The jury said, it "has won steadily increased recognition as one of the classic works of contemporary literature."

When she was honored with the prize in 2004, Austrian author Elfriede Jelinek also refused to go to the awards ceremony. "I cannot manage being in a crowd of people. I cannot stand public attention," the reclusive playwright said. The Swedish Academy had to accept her agoraphobia, but she did, at least, hold her Nobel lecture — per video.

The Soviet author, world famous for his novel "Doctor Zhivago," obtained Nobel recognition in 1958. However, Soviet authorities forced him to decline the prize; he wouldn't be able to re-enter the country if he went to the Stockholm ceremony. Even though he followed his government's orders, he was still demonized afterwards. His son picked up the award in 1989, 29 years after the author's death.

When Italian comedian and playwright Dario Fo won the prize in 1997, the announcement came as a shock to many literary critics, who saw him as just an entertainer and not a real literary figure with an international standing. The satirist fired back with his Nobel speech, which he titled "Against jesters who defame and insult."

Although British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945, he actually obtained the award for his written works — mostly memoirs, history volumes and speeches — in 1953. The jury praised "his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values."

The French philosopher and playwright was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature, but he declined it, saying that "a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution" by accepting official honors. It was rumored that he later asked for the prize money anyway — but that story was never confirmed.

Winning the award in 1907 at the age of 41, British author Joseph Rudyard Kipling, best known for "The Jungle Book" (1894), remains the youngest Nobel laureate in literature to this day. However, his legacy has since been marred by the fact that Kipling, who spent his early childhood and some of his adult life in India, vehemently spoke out in defense of British colonialism.