🕊️ 2025 Nobel Peace Prize: María Corina Machado (Venezuela)
For “her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
Key Facts:
Winner: María Corina Machado, 58, Venezuelan Opposition leader.
Context: She led the movement opposing President Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian regime, becoming a unifying symbol for Venezuela’s divided opposition.
Significance: Recognized as “a woman who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness.”
Risk and sacrifice: Lives in hiding due to government threats; disqualified from contesting the 2024 presidential election.
She is the 20th woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
The peace prize, first awarded in 1901, was created partly to encourage ongoing peace efforts. Alfred Nobel stipulated in his will that the prize should go to someone “who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
Three U.S. leaders
Three sitting U.S. Presidents have won the Nobel Peace Prize: Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, Woodrow Wilson in 1919 and Barack Obama in 2009. Jimmy Carter won the prize in 2002, a full two decades after leaving office. Former Vice President Al Gore received the prize in 2007.
Five U.S. Nobel Peace Prize laureates listed —
Theodore Roosevelt (1906) – Sitting U.S. President
Woodrow Wilson (1919) – Sitting U.S. President
Jimmy Carter (2002) – Former U.S. President
Barack Obama (2009) – Sitting U.S. President
Al Gore (2007) – Former Vice President, not a U.S. President
👉 So, 4 of the 5 are (or were) U.S. Presidents.
Three (Roosevelt, Wilson, Obama) won while in office, and one (Carter) after leaving office.