1970 - Norman Borlaug
Norman Borlaug is a plant breeder who for most of the past five decades has lived in developing nations, teaching the techniques of high-yield agriculture. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970, primarily for his work in reversing the food shortages that haunted India and Pakistan in the 1960s. Perhaps more than anyone else, Borlaug is responsible for the fact that throughout the postwar era, except in sub-Saharan Africa, global food production has expanded faster than the human population, averting the mass starvations that were widely predicted -- for example, in the 1967 best seller Famine -- 1975! The form of agriculture that Borlaug preaches may have prevented a billion deaths.

1976 - Mairead Corrigan
Mairead Corrigan McGuire was born on 27 January 1944 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Her father was a window cleaning contractor and her mother a housewife. From the age of 16 worked in various positions as shorthand typist. When the Peace People movement started she was employed as Confidential Secretary to the Managing Director of Arthur Guinness & Co. In 1976, a runaway car driven by an Irish Republican Army gunman shot dead fleeing from British soldiers, smashed into a family out for a walk. Two of the children were killed outright, the third was mortally injured, and the mother critically injured. When she heard about Betty Williams speak out against the violence, she invited her to the children's funeral. The two women became immediate friends and their relentless pursuit to end violence began. Soon, tens of thousands of Catholic and Protestant women were marching through Northern Ireland's main cities demanding an end to the violence. Together, they founded the group Community of the Peace People. In September 1981, Mairead was married to Jackie Maguire, widower of her sister Anne, who never recovered from the loss of her children and died in 1980.

1976 - Betty Williams
Betty Williams was born on 22 May 1943 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She was raised as a Catholic but her maternal grandfather was a Polish Jew and at an early age, she learned about her relatives who had been killed in World War II. She is the first mother to ever be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In l972 she joined the IRA to try to end the violence but didn't remain a member long. One day in l973 a British soldier was shot and fell near her feet. She knelt down by the boy and prayed with him. Her Catholic neighbors criticized her for showing compassion to the "enemy." In 1976, a runaway car driven by an Irish Republican Army gunman shot dead fleeing from British soldiers, smashed into a family out for a walk. Two of the children were killed outright, the third was mortally injured, and the mother critically injured. After seeing this senseless killing, Betty immediately began to circulate petitions against the violence and in less than forty-eight hours, had over 6,000 signatures. She said, "Terrorism is like a rat, it comes out at night." When Mairead Corrigan Maguire, the children's aunt, heard what Betty Williams had done, she invited her to the children's funeral. The two women became immediate friends and their relentless pursuit to end violence began. Soon, tens of thousands of Catholic and Protestant women were marching through Northern Ireland's main cities demanding an end to the violence. Together, they founded the group Community of the Peace People.

1979 - Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa, whose original name was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, was born on August 27, 1910 in what is now Skopje, Macedonia. For her work with the poor around the world she received the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize. In 1928 she joined a religious order and took the name Teresa. The order immediately sent her to India. A few years later, she began teaching in Calcutta, and in 1948 the Catholic Church granted her permission to leave her convent and work among the city's poor people. She became an Indian citizen that same year. In 1950, she founded a religious order in Calcutta called the Missionaries of Charity. The order provides food for the needy and operates hospitals, schools, orphanages, youth centers, and shelters for lepers and the dying poor. It now has branches in 50 Indian cities and 30 other countries. In addition to the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize, Mother Teresa has received other awards for her work with the needy. These awards include the 1971 Pope John XXIII Peace Prize and India's Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding in 1972. Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997.

1980 - Adolfo Pérez Esquivel
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel was born in Buenos Aires in 1931. After training as an architect and sculptor he was became a professor of architecture. In 1974 he left his teaching post to devote all his time and energy to coordinating the activities of the non-violent elements in Latin America. In 1976 he initiated an international campaign aimed at persuading the United Nations to establish a Human Rights Commission, and a document was drawn up recording breaches of human rights in Latin America. In the Spring of 1977 Pérez Esquivel was imprisoned without cause being shown. The organization of which Pérez Esquivel is the leader, Servicio Paz y Justicia, is a well-established one. Latin America is divided into three regions, each with its own offices, and under these come the national organizations. Their activities are coordinated from Pérez Esquivel's office in Buenos Aires. The organization is based on a Christian view of life, and enjoys close contact with clergy and bishops critical of present-day conditions in Latin America. The chief task of the movement is to promote respect for human rights, a phrase that is intended to include social and economic rights. On the practical level this means that Servicio provides assistance to the rural workers in their struggle for land, and to the trade unions in their struggle to protect the rights of their workers.

1983 - Lech Walesa
Lech Walesa was born on the 29th of September 1943 in Popowo, Poland. He trained as an electrician and worked at the Lenin shipyards in Gdansk. He married in 1969 and has 7 children. In 1970 Walesa was a member of the 27-strong action committee at the Lenin yards. As a result of his activities as shop steward he was dismissed in 1976 and thereafter obliged to earn a living by taking temporary jobs. During the summer of 1980 there were further disturbances among the shipyard workers. At a protest meeting, Walesa seized the leadership by proposing that the workers occupy the shipyards. The authorities were finally forced to capitulate and negotiate. The result of these negotiations was the Gdansk agreement which gave the workers the right to strike and to organize their own independent . Martial Law was declared in December 1981, and the leadership of Solidarity, among them Walesa, was arrested. Walesa was interned for almost a year. He was released in November 1982 and reinstated at the Lenin. He has donated the $200,000 he received for winning the Nobel Peace Prize to a fund created to rebuild the country. Walesa led his Solidarity movement to victory in the country's first democratic elections, and went on to serve as the country's President.

1984 - Desmond Mpilo Tutu
Desmond Tutu was born in 1931 in the gold mining town west of Johannesburg called Klerksdorp. His first jobs were selling peanuts at railroad stations and caddying on a golf course Archbishop He quit teaching after three years because of a new law that restricted blacks to a second-rate "Bantu education." He then became an Anglican priest. He was the first black to be appointed the Dean of St. Mary's. He then served two years as Bishop of Lesotho, and in 1978 was appointed General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches. He led the churches in opposition to the racial segregation brought about by government policies of apartheid. Apartheid had been introduced by the Nationalist party that had taken power in 1948, the objective of the party being to maintain the control of 4.5 million whites over 23 million blacks. Desmond Tutu refused to carry "the pass" and spoke out against the policies. He followed a strict belief in nonviolence. When in other countries, Desmond Tutu called for economic sanctions against South Africa. In 1976 he and a fellow activist tried to turn an uprising in Soweto into peaceful demonstrations. He wrote to the prime minister of South Africa, Balthazar J. Vorster, to warn him about the situation. The Prime minister discarded the letter. On June 16 that year 600 blacks were killed in the Soweto riots. Archbishop Desmond Tutu is the recipient of many honorary degrees from the world's major universities and is the author of An African Prayer Book and The Rainbow People of God.

1986 - Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel was born in 1928 in the town of Sighet, now part of Romania. During World War II, he, with his family and other Jews from the area, were deported to the German concentration and extermination camps, where his parents and little sister perished. Wiesel and his two older sisters survived. Liberated from Buchenwald in 1945 by advancing Allied troops, he was taken to Paris where he studied at the Sorbonne and worked as a journalist. In 1958, he published his first book, La Nuit, a memoir of his experiences in the concentration camps. He has since authored nearly thirty books, some of which use these events as their basic material. In his many Lectures, Wiesel has concerned himself with the situation of the Jews and other groups who have suffered persecution and death because of their religion, race or national origin. He has been outspoken on the plight of Soviet Jewry, on Ethiopian Jewry and on behalf of the State of Israel today. Wiesel has made his home in New York City, and is now a United States citizen. He has been a visiting scholar at Yale University, a Distinguished Professor of Judaic Studies at the City College of New York, and since 1976 has been Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University where he teaches "Literature of Memory." Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council from 1980 - 1986, Wiesel serves on numerous boards of trustees and advisors.

1987 - Oscar Arias Sanchez
Oscar Arias Sanchez was born in 1941. After studying in the United States, he read law and economics at the University of Costa Rica. As a student he engaged actively in the work of the National Liberation Party. Having completed his degree, he went on to take a doctorate in England, with a thesis on the subject of "Who rules Costa Rica?" He is the author of a number of books and articles on political and historical subjects. Arias embarked on his political career in earnest in 1970, as assistant to Jose Figueres, a former President who was again seeking election. When Figueres was elected in 1972, Arias was given a seat in the government. In 1975 his party elected him International Secretary and in 1979, General Secretary. He represented the party at several Socialist International congresses. In the1978 elections, when the Christian Social Unity Party won the presidency, Arias was elected to the Legislative Assembly but withdrew in 1981 to work for his party's presidential candidate, Luis Alberto Monge, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982. Nominated himself in 1985, Arias was elected President in 1986. As President, he intervened against the activities of U.S.-backed Contras on Costa Rican territory. Although critical of the political system in Nicaragua, Arias has concentrated on engaging Nicaragua and the other Central American states in a peace-making process. In May 1986, he met the Presidents of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua to discuss the proposals for a peaceful solution that had been worked out by the Contadora group. The accord approved by the five Presidents in Guatemala on August 7 was based on President Arias's plan.

1989 - The 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso)
His Holiness the 14th the Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, is the head of state and spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. He was born Lhamo Dhondrub on 6 July 1935, in a small village called Taktser in northeastern Tibet. Born to a peasant family, His Holiness was recognized at the age of two, in accordance with Tibetan tradition, as the reincarnation of his predecessor the 13th Dalai Lama, and thus an incarnation Avalokitesvara, the Buddha of Compassion. Since his first visit to the west in the early 1973, a number of western universities and institutions have conferred Peace Awards and honorary Doctorate Degrees in recognition of His Holiness' distinguished writings in Buddhist philosophy and for his leadership in the solution of international conflicts, human rights issues and global environmental problems. On 10 December 1989, His Holiness accepted the prize on the behalf of oppressed everywhere and all those who struggle for freedom and work for world peace and the people of Tibet. The citation read, "The Committee wants to emphasize the fact that the Dalai Lama in his struggle for the liberation of Tibet consistently has opposed the use of violence. He has instead advocated peaceful solutions based upon tolerance and mutual respect in order to preserve the historical and cultural heritage of his people."

1990 - Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was born on March 2, 1931 in Privolnoye, Stavropol province. He went to Moscow State University where he graduated in Law and joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1952 As president of the Soviet Union, he had a leading role in the peace process which today characterizes important parts of the international community. He pulled troops out of Afghanistan and helped achieve a negotiated solution to the long-running regional conflicts in Angola, Nicaragua and Cambodia. He visited China in May 1989, thereby heightening world attention to worker-student democracy demonstrations there. He established diplomatic relations with South Korea. Gorbachev cultivated unprecedented close relations with Presidents Reagan and Bush, negotiated major cuts in nuclear arms, and started to convert the defense industry to peacetime needs. The defense budget and the size of the armed forces have been cut significantly. He currently heads the Gorbachev Foundation (since 1992), Green Cross International (since 1993), and the Civic Forum movement (since April 1996).

1991 - Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi was born on June 19, 1945 as the daughter of General Aung San, who was assassinated in 1947, and Daw Khin Kyi. She was educated in Rangoon, Burma until she was 15 years old. In 1960 she accompanied her mother to Delhi on her appointment as Burmese ambassador to India and Nepal. Kyi studied politics at Delhi University. She earned a BA in philosophy, politics and economics from St. Hugh's College, Oxford University. She worked abroad for the next several years during which time she was married to Dr. Michael Aris and has two children. In 1988, while visiting Burma to take care of her sick mother, Aung San Suu Kyi joined the pro-democracy movement which was pressing for political reforms in Burma. On August 26 she addressed a half-million mass rally in front of the famous Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon and called for a democratic government. Later, the military government arrested her and detained her for almost six years. She was released on July 10, 1995. During her detention she was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. She established a health and education trust in support of the Burmese people to use the $1.3 million prize money.

1993 - Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in Transkei, South Africa on July 25*,1918. His father was Chief Henry Mandela of the Tembu Tribe. Mandela himself was educated at University College of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand and qualified in law. He joined the African National Congress in 1944. After the banning of the ANC in 1960, Mandela argued for the setting up of a military wing within the ANC. The ANC executive agreed that those members who wished to involve themselves in Mandela's campaign would not be stopped from doing so by the ANC. This led to the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe. Mandela was arrested in 1962 and sentenced to five years' imprisonment with hard labor. In 1963 when many fellow leaders of the ANC and the Umkhonto we Sizwe were arrested, Mandela was brought to stand trial with them for plotting to overthrow the government by violence. On June 12, 1964, eight of the accused, including Mandela, were sentenced to life imprisonment. From 1964 to 1982, he was incarcerated at Robben Island Prison, off Cape Town; thereafter, he was at Pollsmoor Prison, nearby on the mainland. During his years in prison, his reputation grew steadily. He became a symbol of resistance as the anti-apartheid movement gathered strength. He refused to compromise his political position to obtain his freedom. Nelson Mandela was released on February 18, 1990. After his release, he plunged himself wholeheartedly into his life's work, striving to attain the goals he and others had set out almost four decades earlier. In 1991, at the first national conference of the ANC held inside South Africa after the organization had been banned in 1960, Mandela was elected President of the ANC.

1993 - Fredrik Willem de Klerk
Frederik Willem de Klerk was born in Johannesburg on March 18, 1936. He is the son of Senator Jan de Klerk, a leading politician, who became minister in the South African government. F.W. de Klerk graduated with a law degree from Potchefstroom University in 1958 and then practiced law in Vereeniging in the Transvaal. In 1969, he married Marike Willemse, with whom he has two sons and a daughter. In 1978, F.W. de Klerk was appointed Minister of Posts and Telecommunications and Social Welfare and Pensions by Prime Minister Vorster. Under Prime Minister P.W. Botha, he held a succession of ministerial posts. On December 1, 1986, he became the leader of the House of Assembly. As Minister of National Education, F.W. de Klerk was a supporter of segregated universities, and as a leader of the National Party in Transvaal, he was not known to advocate reform. In February 1989, de Klerk was elected leader of the National Party and in September 1989 he was elected State President. In his first speech after assuming the party leadership he called for a nonracist South Africa and for negotiations about the country's future. He lifted the ban on the ANC and released Nelson Mandela. He brought apartheid to an end and opened the way for the drafting of a new constitution for the country based on the principle of one person, one vote.

1994 - Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat was born in 1929 in Jerusalem. His full name is Mohammed Abad Arouf Arafat. He studied civil engineering at Cairo University. In 1952-56 he was president of the League of Palestinian Students. He formed, with others, Al Fatah movement in 1956. He lived in Kuwait 1957-65. Arafat was elected chairman of the PLO in 1968 and in 1971 was appointed general commander of the Palestinian Revolution Forces. He addressed the United Nations General Assembly in 1974, on behalf of the PLO, and was the first representative of a non-governmental organization to appear Before it. In 1988 he recognized the state of Israel. The award of the Nobel Peace Prize for 1994 to Arafat, Peres and Rabin is intended by the Norwegian Nobel Committee to honor a political act which called for great courage on both sides, and which has opened up opportunities for a new development towards fraternity in the Middle East.

1994 - Shimon Peres
Shimon Peres, Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, was born in Poland in 1923 and immigrated with his family as a child. He studied at the Ben Shemen Agricultural School, and was one of the founders of Kibbutz Alumot in the Jordan Valley. In Israel's War of Independence, he was responsible for arms purchases and recruitment. He served in various cabinet posts, including Minister of Defense (1974-1977). The highlight of his tenure as Defense Minister was the Entebbe rescue operation. During his term as Prime Minister, Israel withdrew from Lebanon and an economic stabilization plan was implemented. In 1978, Mr. Peres was elected Vice-President of the Socialist International. Mr. Peres began his second tenure as Israel's Minister of Foreign Affairs on July 13, 1992 with the establishment of the new, Labour-led government. Shimon Peres has authored several books. He is married to Sonya (nee Gelman); they have two sons and a daughter - and six grandchildren. The award of the Nobel Peace Prize for 1994 to Arafat, Peres and Rabin is intended by the Norwegian Nobel Committee to honor a political act which called for great courage on both sides, and which has opened up opportunities for a new development towards fraternity in the Middle East.

1995 - Sir Joseph Rotblat
Joseph Rotblat was born in Warsaw, Poland, on 4 November 1908 and has been a British citizen since 1946. He has a Ph.D. in physics from University of Warsaw and several degrees from British universities. When World War II started, he was the Assistant Director of Atomic Physics Institute of Free University of Poland. He moved to England, and from 1939-1944 worked on the atom bomb at the University of Liverpool and in Los Alamos, New Mexico. In 1959 he organized the Atom Train Exhibition, the first large-scale effort to educate the public about the peaceful and military applications of nuclear energy. In 1955 he signed of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto and chaired the press conference which announced it. From 1957-1973 he was Secretary-General of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs which bring together influential scholars and public figures concerned with reducing the danger of armed conflict and seeking cooperative solutions for global problems.. He was co-founder and a member of governing board of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. He held dozens of public and academic appointments, including being a member of the Management Group of World Health Organization, mainly responsible for reports on effects of nuclear war on health and health services. He authored more than 300 publications, including 20 books.

1996 - José Ramos-Horta
José Ramos-Horta was born December 26, 1949 in Dili, East Timor. Before the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975, he was the Minister of External Relations and Information and was a Permanent Representative to the United Nations for the East Timorese independence movement from 1975 onwards for over a decade. In 1975 Indonesia took control of East Timor, former Portuguese colony of 800,000 people, and began systematically oppressing the people. In the years that followed it has been estimated that one-third of the population of East Timor lost their lives due to starvation, epidemics, war and terror. Ramos-Horta is now the Special Representative of the National Council of Maubere Resistance of East Timor. CNRM is a non-partisan supreme national body based inside East Timor comprising all East Timorese nationalist political forces and resistance groups. He is also Coordinator, East Timorese Resistance Diplomatic Front Coordinating Commission, Executive Director, Lecturer Diplomacy Training Program, Law Faculty, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, and an expert in International Service for Human Rights, Geneva. He has a Master in Peace Studies Antioch University in Ohio and has written several books.

1996 - Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo
Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo was born in Wailakama, a village in Vemasse, Baucau, East Timor on 3 February 1948 His father, a school teacher, died two years later. The Belo family had a background of farming. In his childhood the young Belo developed skills in shepherding water buffaloes in Kekeli, the village of his ancestors. He was sent to missionary schools and studied at the Salesian Novitiate in Lisbon. During this time he formally became a member of the Salesian Order. He was ordained a priest in 1980. In 1983 the Vatican appointed him as Apostolic Administrator of the Dili Diocese. This made him the virtual leader of the Catholic Church in his homeland. On 19 June 1988 he was ordained as a Bishop. He has been the foremost representative of the people of East Timor. At the risk of his own life, he has tried to protect his people from infringements by those in power. In his efforts to create a just settlement based on his people's right to self-determination, he has been a constant spokesman for non-violence and dialogue with the Indonesian authorities. In 1975 Indonesia took control of East Timor, former Portuguese colony of 800,000 people, and began systematically oppressing the people. In the years that followed it has been estimated that one-third of the population of East Timor lost their lives due to starvation, epidemics, war and terror.