Nobel Prize Wilhelm Röntgen's discovery of X-rays and Philipp Lenard's work on cathode rays. The Academy of Sciences selected Röntgen for the prize. In the last decades of the 19th century, many chemists had made significant contributions. Thus, with the Chemistry Prize, the Academy "was chiefly faced with merely deciding the order in which these scientists should be awarded the prize". The Academy received 20 nominations, eleven of them for Jacobus van 't Hoff. Van 't Hoff was awarded the prize for his contributions in chemical thermodynamics. The Swedish Academy chose the poet Sully Prudhomme for the first Nobel Prize in Literature.
Paul Prudhomme His father was a farmer, who struggled financially during Prudhomme's childhood, and his mother was a creative cook. Previously named after Saint Paul, as chosen by a Catholic priest, Prudhomme adopted the pseudonym "Gene Autry Prudhomme" during his youth. Paul Prudhomme's maternal ancestors include early Acadian settlers Martin Aucoin (c. 1651 – 1711) and Marie Gaudet (c. 1657 – 1734). Prudhomme opened his first restaurant in Opelousas in 1957, a hamburger restaurant called "Big Daddy O's Patio". The restaurant went out of business in nine months, which also saw the end of his first marriage. He became a magazine seller