Obama mural in Bushwick, Brooklyn in 2008. Artist: Just One (photo Jaime Rojo)

The third sitting president of the U.S. to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, President Barack Obama follows in the footsteps of Theodore Roosevelt, who won the award in 1906 and Woodrow Wilson, who won in it in 1919.

(courtesy Billi Kid)

Citing “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”, the Nobel Committee said, “Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future”

Image by David Choe

In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses.”

Photo by Dreamsjung

photo credit: dreamsjung

“Let me be clear,” Obama said today in a speech at the White House, after the prize was announced, “I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people of all nations.”

Grand Street in Brooklyn – This mural arrived in the spring of 2008, the first time we started to see Obama art on the streets in numbers. Artist: Unknown (photo Jaime Rojo)

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