A brief historical account of the Nobel Prize Laureates clearly shows the track of the discovery, development, and applications of NMR spectroscopy.

• Otto Stern, USA: Nobel Prize in Physics 1943, "for his contribution to the development of molecular ray method and his discovery of the magnetic moment of the proton"
• Isidor I. Rabi, USA: Nobel Prize in Physics 1944, "for his resonance method for recording the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei"
• Felix Bloch, USA and Edward M. Purcell, USA: Nobel Prize in Physics 1952, "for their discovery of new methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements and discoveries in connection therewith"
• Richard R. Ernst, Switzerland: Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1991, "for his contributions to the development of the methodology of high resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy
• Kurt Wüthrich, Switzerland: Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2002, "for his development of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy for determining the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules in solution"
• Paul C. Lauterbur, USA and Peter Mansfield, United Kingdom: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2003, "for their discoveries concerning magnetic resonance imaging"