John Davison Rockefeller Sr.: The richest man in history On this day, July 8 in the year 1839, the founder of Standard Oil Company was born in New York, USA. Augustus Caesar — Potentially the richest man of all time, he was the first emperor of the Roman Empire and valued at a rough estimate of $4.6 trillion in today’s dollars. It is a club for men who have built legendary amounts of wealth and monumental legacies. Estimated Net Worth: $1.4 trillion. "It is pitiful, so pitiful, that one cannot watch John Rockefeller sit through a church service and never cease to feel that he is one of the saddest objects in the world," she wrote. In 1903, while working on her expose, she watched him in church. “Although Standard Oil was eventually forced to break into multiple companies because it was ruled a monopoly, BP, Exxon, ConocoPhillips and Chevron (among others) are all subsidiaries of Standard Oil,” writes Sam Parr for The Hustle. ^ "Often named as the richest man ever, a more accurate conversion of sesterce would put his modern figure between $200 million and $20 billion." Kat Eschner is a freelance science and culture journalist based in Toronto. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. This method of comparing individuals' wealth across time is disputed. Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Who is the richest black man in the world? After the takeover, the partner committed suicide and he was ruined, leaving a deep impression on a young Ida Tarbell. Mansa Musa I of MaliMansa Musa I of Mali was the wealthiest person in medieval history, and perhaps of all time. As a young man, he took a job as an assistant bookkeeper, saved his dough, and then partnered with others in buying a couple of oil refineries in Cleveland. Keep up-to-date on: © 2020 Smithsonian Magazine. 1. Privacy Policy. Charles & David Koch, USA Charles Koch, CEO of Koch Industries, and his brother executive vice president David Koch, of Koch Industries have an estimated net worth of $40.6bn each, making them the richest Oil & Gas billionaires and the world’s sixth richest overall. That young man was John Davison Rockefeller in 1855, who in 25 years would become the wealthiest man of his time, and arguably the wealthiest in history, reigning over a … But there was another side to him. He loved to work, made an absurd fortune and then gave the bulk of it away. His dad was a salesman who was rarely at home as young John grew up. As this was during the 13 century, when gold was the measure of wealth, it’s Musa who holds the title of richest man in history. Mansa Musa, the king of Timbuktu, is often referred to as the wealthiest person in history. Although he had hoped to go to college, he could not attend one because his father needed financial assistance i… People hated Rockefeller’s guts, but they also acknowledged that he was good at what he did. A WarnerMedia Company. Was Mansa Musa the richest man in history? The People's Almanac. Rockefeller made his fortune by revolutionizing the oil industry. Augustus Caesar, one of the richest people of all time in history, had an economy that was one of the largest in his times, with it accounting for about 25% to 30% of the world’s economic output. Estimated wealth adjusted for inflation: $400 billion (or 4x Jeff Bezos). John D. Rockefeller needed neither a trust fund nor the example of a successful father to become the richest man in American history. Rockefeller might have been the richest man in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but there was another age that had extremely rich people: the Renaissance. "In 1949, the businessman paid almost $10 million in cash to Ibn Saud, the founder of Saudi Arabia, for drilling rights to a plot of land where oil had never been found..." This success in the Middle East – buoyed by Getty’s willingness to learn the native tongue – is what made him the richest man in the world. Adjusting for inflation, he is often regarded as the richest person in history. The story of John D. Rockefeller is maybe one of the strangest of the American Gilded Age. SmartNews Keeping you current John D. Rockefeller Was the Richest Person To Ever Live. The government broke it up in 1911 amid allegations of price fixing and other underhanded business dealings, but not before Rockefeller became the country's first billionaire. By the early 1900s, Standard Oil controlled more than 90 percent of the market. 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