A posthumous recognition is a ceremonial award given after the recipient has died, usually in honor of an action associated with their death. Awards are normally given while the recipient is alive, but when awarded after death, the recipient is referred to as having been "awarded posthumously." Some awards are given only after the death of the recipient, and thus are by definition a posthumous recognition. Conversely, some awards, such as the Nobel Prize, and most knighthoods, are forbidden from being awarded posthumously.
Examples
- As part of the criteria for bestowing the Medal of Honor or the Victoria Cross, the recipient must have risked "great self-sacrifice" in an act of extraordinary heroism. As a consequence, many are awarded posthumously.
- The tongue-in-cheek Darwin Award is given as a posthumous recognition, since one of the criteria for receiving it is that the recipient must have committed an act that unintentionally led to their own removal from the human gene pool, i.e., either their own death or self-sterilization.
- The victims of the Virginia Tech massacre have been awarded posthumous degrees.
- Randy Shughart and Gary Gordon were the first soldiers to be awarded Medals of Honor posthumously since the Vietnam War. They received these for defending a crashed helicopter from hundreds of advancing Somalis in the Battle of Mogadishu.
