Is Mansa Musa the richest man who ever lived?
West African king Mansa Musa had more wealth than the Forbes' five richest billionaires combined.
www.bbc.com
The 10 richest men of all time
- Mansa Musa (1280-1337, king of the Mali empire) wealth indescribable
- Augustus Caesar (63 BC-14 AD, Roman emperor) $4.6tn (£3.5tn)
- Zhao Xu (1048-1085, emperor Shenzong of Song in China) wealth incalculable
- Akbar I (1542-1605, emperor of India's Mughal dynasty) wealth incalculable
- Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919, Scottish-American industrialist) $372bn
- John D Rockefeller (1839-1937) American business magnate) $341bn
- Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov (1868-1918, Tsar of Russia) $300bn
- Mir Osman Ali Khan ( 1886-1967, Indian royal) $230bn
- William The Conqueror (1028-1087) $229.5bn
- Muammar Gaddafi (1942-2011, long-time ruler of Libya) $200bn
During the reign of Mansa Musa, the empire of Mali accounted for almost half of the Old World's gold, according to the British Museum.
And all of it belonged to the king.
[...]
In addition to encouraging the arts and architecture, he also funded literature and built schools, libraries and mosques. Timbuktu soon became a centre of education and people travelled from around the world to study at what would become the Sankore University.
