40 Fun Facts About Awards

Why did the Michelin brothers hand their first guide to hotels and garages free to French motorists?

The free guide was a ploy to sell more tyres: more driving meant more tyre wear, so nearly 35,000 copies went out in 1900. Michelin began charging in 1922 after spotting one propping up a workbench.

Olympic gold medals must carry at least six grams of gold; the rest of the medal is mostly which metal?

An Olympic 'gold' is at least 92.5% silver under a thin plating of gold; the last solid-gold medals were handed out in 1912.

Which actress won a Razzie for All About Steve the night before taking the Best Actress Oscar?

Sandra Bullock is the only performer to win a Razzie and an Oscar for the same year, collecting Worst Actress for All About Steve and then Best Actress for The Blind Side in 2010.

Which Canadian singer won the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest for Switzerland by a single point?

Céline Dion won for Switzerland with 'Ne partez pas sans moi', edging the United Kingdom by one point in one of the contest's closest finishes.

How did chemist George de Hevesy hide two Nobel medals from the Nazis in occupied Copenhagen?

He dissolved them in acid, aqua regia, and left the jar on a lab shelf; after the war the gold was precipitated out and the medals of Max von Laue and James Franck were recast from it.

France's Prix Goncourt, its most coveted literary prize, comes with a cheque for how much money?

The Goncourt cheque is a symbolic 10 euros; the real reward is the sales surge, and the jury still picks the winner over lunch at the Drouant restaurant in Paris.

The Fields Medal, given every four years to mathematicians, goes only to winners under what age?

Winners must be under 40 on 1 January of the award year; the medal itself shows Archimedes, and it is handed out only at the International Congress of Mathematicians.

The Golden Lion is the top prize at the world's oldest film festival, founded in 1932 in which city?

Venice's festival, founded by Giuseppe Volpi in 1932, is the oldest in the world; its Golden Lion goes to the best film in competition.

Which novelist shared the 2019 Booker Prize with Bernardine Evaristo after judges broke the no-split rule?

Margaret Atwood's The Testaments shared the prize with Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other, defying a ban on ties brought in after the 1992 split between Michael Ondaatje and Barry Unsworth.

Broadway's top theatre prize is nicknamed after which co-founder of the American Theatre Wing?

Antoinette Perry, nicknamed Tony, was an actress, director and producer who co-founded and ran the American Theatre Wing; the first Tonys were handed out in 1947 at the Waldorf Astoria.

The Hugo Awards, science fiction's top prizes since 1953, hand winners a trophy shaped like what?

The Hugo trophy is a stylised rocket ship on a base, a nod to Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories who gave the awards their name.

Which American children's book award, named after an 18th-century London publisher, was the world's first?

The Newbery Medal, proposed in 1921, honours John Newbery, the London publisher who first made children's books a profitable trade; it is given by a division of the American Library Association.

Which physicist is the only individual to hold both an Ig Nobel, for levitating a frog, and a real Nobel Prize?

Andre Geim levitated a frog with magnets for his 2000 Ig Nobel, then shared the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics for isolating graphene, a double that Guinness World Records lists as unique.

London theatre's Olivier Awards hand winners a bust of Laurence Olivier in which Shakespearean role?

The statuette shows Olivier as Henry V in his 1937 Old Vic production; the awards began in 1976 as the Society of West End Theatre Awards and took his name in 1984.

The BAFTA trophy, a theatrical mask, was designed by which American sculptor?

Mitzi Cunliffe designed the mask; the academy itself dates from a 1947 meeting chaired by director David Lean, who became its founding chairman.

Which act won the Mercury Prize, for British or Irish album of the year, in both 2001 and 2011?

PJ Harvey won in 2001 and again in 2011; as of 2025 nobody else had won twice since the prize began in 1992 with Primal Scream's Screamadelica, and the winner collects £25,000.

Which fashion designer made the first of the Brit Awards' annual guest-designed statuettes in 2011?

Vivienne Westwood reworked the Britannia figure in 2011, and Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin later took turns; Robbie Williams holds the record haul with 13 solo Brits plus his Take That wins.

Sweden's Polar Music Prize, first given to Paul McCartney in 1992, was founded by the manager of which band?

ABBA's manager Stig Anderson endowed the prize in 1989 with a donation to the Royal Swedish Academy of Music; the first laureates were Paul McCartney and the three Baltic states.

The MTV Video Music Awards trophy, a spacesuited astronaut, has officially been called what since 2017?

MTV renamed the 'moonman' the Moon Person in 2017; the figure comes from the channel's 1981 launch ident, which reused Apollo 11 footage.

What do Kennedy Center Honors recipients, celebrated each December in Washington, wear around their necks?

A rainbow ribbon, symbolising 'a spectrum of many skills within the performing arts', hangs round each honoree's neck at the gala, after a White House reception hosted by the President.

John F. Kennedy's Presidential Medal of Freedom replaced a 1945 Medal of Freedom created by which president?

Harry S. Truman's 1945 Medal of Freedom honoured civilian service in wartime; Kennedy's 1963 executive order turned it into the joint-highest civilian award, alongside the Congressional Gold Medal.

What did Time magazine crown 'Machine of the Year' for 1982, in place of its usual Man of the Year?

The personal computer took the 1982 cover to herald the dawn of the Information Age, an honour that began with aviator Charles Lindbergh in 1927 and in 2006 went to 'You'.

Which 1955 film about a lonely Bronx butcher first won both the Palme d'Or and the Best Picture Oscar?

Marty did the Cannes-and-Oscar double before anyone else, a feat matched only by Parasite in 2019 and Anora in 2024 as of the 2026 Oscars.

Which company has funded the Turing Award's $1 million prize, the 'Nobel of computing', since 2014?

Google bankrolls the $1 million that comes with the Turing Award, which the Association for Computing Machinery first gave in 1966 to Alan Perlis.

Whose keynote at the first Laureus World Sports Awards declared 'sport has the power to change the world'?

Nelson Mandela delivered the keynote in Monte Carlo on 25 May 2000; the awards had been set up a year earlier by Daimler and Richemont as patrons of the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation.

The Masters champion may take the green jacket home for one year; where must it stay after that?

It must remain at Augusta National, where the club keeps it for the champion to wear whenever he is on the grounds; only the reigning winner may take it off the property.

FIFA's Puskás Award, created in 2009 and first won by Cristiano Ronaldo, honours what each year?

The Puskás Award goes to the most beautiful goal of the calendar year, in honour of Hungary's Ferenc Puskás; Ronaldo's winner was a long-range strike for Manchester United against Porto.

Which striker, later president of Liberia, became the first non-European to win the Ballon d'Or in 1995?

George Weah won in 1995, the year eligibility opened to players of any origin at European clubs, and through 2025 he remained the only African winner; he was Liberia's president from 2018 to 2024.

The World Cup's best-goalkeeper prize was the Yashin Award until 2006, honouring a keeper from which country?

Lev Yashin of the Soviet Union lent his name to the prize from 1994 to 2006; it is now the Golden Glove, sponsored by Adidas like the Golden Boot for top scorer.

Which journalist created and hosts The Game Awards, launched in 2014 to succeed the Spike Video Game Awards?

Geoff Keighley put about $1 million of his own money into launching the show after a decade on the Spike awards, and he still produces and hosts it.

Which British-born video game prizes, launched in 1983 and voted on by the public, are the longest-running?

The Golden Joystick Awards began in London in 1983 and are now run by the publisher Future, with millions of fans voting online via GamesRadar+.

In the Michelin Guide's own wording, a restaurant with three stars offers cooking that is 'worth' what?

Three stars means 'exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey'; two stars is merely 'worth a detour' and one star 'worth a stop'.

The Bocuse d'Or, a biennial world chef championship named after Paul Bocuse, is held in which French city?

Lyon, the city where Paul Bocuse built his reputation, has hosted the contest at the Sirha hospitality fair since the first edition in January 1987.

Which Copenhagen restaurant, run by René Redzepi, topped the World's 50 Best Restaurants list in 2010, 2014 and 2021?

Noma was named best in the world in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2021, a run that put Nordic foraging cuisine on the global map.

The Peabody Awards, America's oldest major broadcasting honours, are administered by a university in which state?

Georgia's Grady College of Journalism at the University of Georgia has run the Peabodys since the first was given in 1941, honouring philanthropist George Peabody.

Which London body's Copley Medal, first given in 1731, is the world's oldest surviving scientific award?

The Royal Society has awarded the Copley since 1731, when Stephen Gray won it; Benjamin Franklin took it in 1753 for his experiments on electricity.

Which mathematics honour, handed out annually by the King of Norway, is named after a prodigy who died at 26?

The Abel Prize, modelled directly on the Nobels and first awarded in 2003, honours Niels Henrik Abel (1802–1829); Karen Uhlenbeck became its first female winner in 2019.

The Breakthrough Prizes, bankrolled by Sergey Brin and Mark Zuckerberg among others, pay each winner how much?

Each Breakthrough laureate receives three million dollars, a sum set by founders Sergey Brin, Anne Wojcicki, Priscilla Chan, Mark Zuckerberg and Yuri and Julia Milner.

Jakob von Uexküll funded the 1980 launch of the Right Livelihood Award, the 'Alternative Nobel', by selling what?

He sold his stamp collection, worth about US$1 million, to endow the award, which has no ties to the Nobel Foundation despite the nickname.

The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, named after a Russian dissident physicist, is awarded by which body?

The European Parliament set it up in December 1988, and the €50,000 prize has since gone to dissidents, journalists and whole movements.