20-MAY-1822 :- BIRTH OF Frédéric Passy, Nobel Prize winner.

Frédéric Passy 
(May 20, 1822 – June 12, 1912) was a French economist and win the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901 with Henry Dunant.

Born in Paris to Felix Passy a veteran of Waterloo and Marie-Louis-Pauline Salleron, Passy's uncle was Hippolyte Passy, a cabinet minister for both Louis Philippe and Louis Napoleon. Passy studied law and practised for a short time before accepting a position as an accountant in the State Council 1846-1849. However, under his uncle's influence he gave up this post and returned to the university to study economics. True to his republican principles, he withdrew from politics after the coup d'état of Napoleon III and refused to be reconciled to the Second Empire; he was therefore ineligible for any government post. He became a professional economist in 1857, and in 1860 he began to teach political economy both in Paris and in the provinces.

His reputation was established through his Mélanges économiques (1857) essays and a lecture series given at the University of Montpellier and published as the Leçons d'économie politique. He was an advocate of free trade and adherent to the ideas of Richard Cobden. In 1877 he became a member of the French Académie des sciences morales et politiques, a component of the Institute de France; and he was a commander of the Legion of Honor. He was president of the Society of Political Economy for 70 years.

Passy directly engaged in political questions, advocating educational reform and intervening to prevent war between France and Prussia over Luxembourg. In 1868, he helped found the International and Permanent League of Peace to avert possible future conflicts and became its permanent secretary. 

In 1881, he won election to the Chamber of Deputies, where he advocated foreign policy changes and labor reform, including legislation on industrial accidents. He won reelection in 1886 but lost in 1889. He also supported a system of international conflict arbitration, which was inspired by Randal Cremer's resolution that established arbitration between the United States and England. In 1888, his efforts led to a meeting between British Parliamentary members and French deputies to discuss the concept of organized arbitration. The following year, the Inter-Parliamentary Union was established with Passy as one of its presidents. He was a member of the International Bureau of Peace at Bern, Switzerland.

Passy's writings and speeches advocating peace were widely recognized. In 1909, he published Pour la paix, a work which chronicled the establishment of the various peace and arbitration organizations with which he was associated. From 1881 to 1902, he was professor of political economy in several colleges.

He died on June 12, 1912.