This is a graduate course in condensed matter physics based on some 14 Nobel Prizes in Physics, from the 1956 Prize to Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain "for their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect" to the 2010 Prize to Geim and Novoselov "for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene". A rather broad set of topics will be covered, based on the Prizes given in 1956, 1962, 1972, 1973, 1977, 1978, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1991, 1998, 2003, 2007 and 2010 (see http://nobelprize.org for details). Historical aspects as well as connections to the state-of-the-art will be discussed for the various discoveries and inventions behind the Prizes.