The lost Nobel

In 1906, the Nobel Committee for Chemistry recommended to the Swedish Academy, at which Mendeleev was a member, to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 1906 to Mendeleev for his discovery of the periodic system. The Chemistry Section of the Swedish Academy supported this recommendation. The Academy was then supposed to approve the Committee's choice, as it has done in almost every case. Unexpectedly, at the full meeting of the Academy, some members of the committee pressed for the rejection of Mendeleev, arguing that the periodic system was too old to acknowledge its discovery in 1906.