I didn't know the date, but the story I heard many years ago goes like this...
Alfred Nobel (sometime around the 19th century?) dedicated his time and knowledge to find a way to turn the TNT explosive, that was liquid and very unstable, into a solid explosive, that could be used safely by miners, as there were many mining accidents with explosives and alot of people died every year.
He successfully managed to turn the dangerous liquid into a solid piece of explosive that miners could easily carry down the mine safely and denotate by lighting a fuse at distance, thus creating the age old TNT stick.
But no matter how good were his intentions, the army took his invention and turned it into bombs to use in war and killing, which left him very upset and disappointed. So he decided to create the Nobel prize to recognize other scientists and people like him that strived to create good things to help mankind.
The objective of the prize is the recognition of creation/achievement of something really good for mankind, the money prize is merely symbolic. The prize money probably doesn't even cover one tenth of the expenses the person/institution had to achieve the goal.

We can only hope that our world doesn't run out of Alfred Nobel's