July 29, 2006

Dag Hammarskjöld, one of the United Nations' most influential secretaries-general (1953-61), was born on this date in 1905. Hammarskjöld's father, Hjalmar Hammarskjöld, was Prime Minister of Sweden (1914-17). Formerly an undersecretary of finance, chairman of the Bank of Sweden and a cabinet advisor on finance and economics, in the UN, Dag Hammarskjöld worked to ease tensions in the Middle East and among African nations fighting for independence. Killed in a plane crash in September 1961, Hammarskjöld was posthumously awarded that year's Nobel Peace Prize.