Rabindranath Tagore was 1st non-European Nobel recipient
Bengali author Rabindranath Tagore became the first non-European recipient of the Nobel Prize across all categories when he won the 1913 Nobel Prize in literature. Tagore was awarded the prize for his "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse". Tagore was also knighted by the British Government in 1915, but renounced the honour as a protest against the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.