One of the things that many people complain about today is wealth inequality. With all this talk about the 1% or the 2%, it makes one wonder if it was always like this. The answer is no, it was worse.
Historically, kings and other leaders had most of the money of a given area or region they ruled. But who was the richest of all time? Well, that answer may surprise you. The richest people alive today, that we point to as examples of gross wealth inequality, don’t even make it in the historic top 10.
So move over Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, here are the wealthiest people ever to inhabit the earth.
10. Osman Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VII– peak net worth: $230 billion
Osman Ali, also called Us̄mān ʿAlī Khan, Mīr, was born April 6, 1886, in Hyderabad, India, and died February 24, 1967. He was the Nizam, the ruler of Hyderabad princely state in India, in the period 1911–48 and its constitutional president until 1956. For one of the richest men in history, he ruled over a state the size of Italy. He gained his wealth because in his state was the richest diamond mine in the world.
9. Tsar Nicholas II of Russia – peak net worth: $300 billion
The Russian was born May 6, 1868, in Tsarskoye, Selo, now Pushkin, near St. Petersburg, Russia. He died July 17, 1918, in Yekaterinburg, along with his wife, Alexandra, and their children when they were murdered by the Bolsheviks fearing that he would become the leader of the White army and defeat the Red army in the Russian civil war. He was the last Russian Tzar and he left behind massive gold rooms in 7 palaces that encompassed 645,835 square feet of total floor area.
8. Andrew Carnegie – peak net worth: $337 billion
Andrew Carnegie, born November 25, 1835, in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotand. He died August 11, 1919, in Lenox, Massachusetts, U.S.A. He was a Scottish-born American industrialist who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century. In 1900 the profits of Carnegie Steel were $40,000,000, of which Carnegie’s share was $25,000,000. Carnegie sold his company to J.P. Morgan’s newly formed United States Steel Corporation for $480,000,000 in 1901. He subsequently retired and devoted himself to his philanthropic activities.
7. John D. Rockefeller – peak net worth: $367 billion
John D. Rockefeller, in full John Davison Rockefeller, was born on July 8, 1839, in Richford, New York, U.S.A. He died on May 23, 1937, in Ormond Beach, Florida. He was an American industrialist and philanthropist, founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust. Standard Oil used aggressive competitive practices, which many regarded as ruthless, and the growing public hostility toward monopolies, of which Standard was the best-known, caused some industrialized states to enact anti-monopoly laws and led to the passage by the U.S. Congress of the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890.
6. Mansa Musa I of Mali – peak net worth: $415 billion
Mansa Musa, who died about 1332, was Mansa (emperor) of the West African empire of Mali from 1307-1332. Mansa Mūsā left a realm notable for its extent and riches. He built the Great Mosque at Timbuktu, but he is best remembered in the Middle East and Europe for the splendor of his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324. As a Muslim, he is required to take a pilgrimage to Mecca but he decided to travel in style. Mansa Musa travel with hundreds of Camels and along with his massive gold gifts to the leaders of towns and cities he went through he would though gold onto the streets at the poor. He gave away so much money that not only was Mali put on European maps but the country is still in debt because of how much gold this man gave away.
5. King Solomon of Israel – peak net worth: $2.2 trillion
Solomon was the biblical Israelite king who built the first Temple of Jerusalem and who is revered in Judaism and Christianity for his wisdom and in Islam as a prophet. Not much is known about him but according to the Bible, he received 25 tons of gold for each of the 39 years of his reign. Along with the existing wealth in Israel gives you his net worth.
4. Augustus Caesar – peak net worth: $4.63 trillions
Augustus Caesar was born on September 23, 63 BCE, and died August 19, 14 CE, in Nola, near Naples, Italy. He was the first Roman Emperor, following the republic, which had been finally destroyed by the dictatorship of Julius Caesar, his great-uncle, and adoptive father. With unlimited patience, skill, and efficiency, he overhauled every aspect of Roman life and brought durable peace and prosperity to the Greco-Roman world. As emperor, Augustus Caesar owned 1/5 of the wealth of the Roman Empire at its height.
3. Akbar I – peak net worth: $21 trillion
Akbar I was born on October 15, 1542, in Umarkot, Pakistan, and died October 25, 1605, in Agra, India. Akbar was the greatest of the Mughal emperors of India. He reigned from 1556 to 1605 and extended Mughal power over most of the Indian subcontinent. As part of the Mughal Empire, he had India under his control, along with international trade. which gave him his extensive wealth.
2. Emperor Shenzong of Song – peak net worth: $30+ trillion
Emperor Shenzong of Song was born in 1048, in China and died in 1085, in China. He was the sixth emperor of the Song Dynasty of China and reigned from 1067 to 1085. During his reign, some of the greatest intellectual and cultural figures of the era flourished. His policies of low-interest government loans to peasants, new land surveys to correct tax inequities, and government revenues increased which made his Empire prosper. This caused China to flourish which made Shenzong wealthy.
1. Genghis Khan – peak net worth: $100s trillions
Genghis Khan was born 1162, near Lake Baikal in Mongolia, and died August 18, 1227. He was a Mongolian warrior-ruler, one of the most famous conquerors of history, who consolidated tribes into a unified Mongolia and then extended his empire across Asia to the Adriatic Sea. He would ride up to a city, tell it to surrender or be destroyed, and give up half its wealth. He fought and plundered China, Korea, Japan, the Middle East, India, and Eastern Europe, and plundered Russia. With all this wealth, he is easily the richest man in history and it is a shame that not many know about this military strategy because European historians often glossed over his accomplishments because western civilization lost to what it considered a “savage” nomad on a horse.
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