When you think of the richest man in the world you probably think of Bill Gates
or Jeff Bezos but those guys are nowhere near one man named Moosa the first of
Molli this man whose full name was Mansa Musa had more money than anyone ever in
the world his net worth was four hundred billion dollars four times the richest
man today today we're gonna look at who this guy was and how he made all of that
dough I'm Charlie and today we're going to look at the richest person to ever
live but before we become billionaires why not subscribe and press the
notification bell - according to the Forbes real-time list of the richest
people in the world number one is Jeff Bezos he of course made Amazon and his
net worth is a hundred and eight point nine billion dollars Jeff Bezos is 55
years old but by the time Mansa Musa was that age his net worth was 400 billion
Mansa Musa was a 14th century West African ruler historians say he was
richer than anyone could ever describe but he was also very generous and that
nearly ruined his country's entire economy Mansa Musa was born in the year
1218 he was the tenth man in a family of rulers in the country Mali when he was
born his brother was actually ruling the country but in 1312 he abdicated to go
on an expedition around the world so one day he sailed off with a fleet of 2,000
ships and thousands of men and women but after they sailed off they never
returned it's expected that they got lost somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean
this meant that the country of Mali was left to his younger brother Mansa Musa
as soon as Mansa Musa took over the country he began expanding it rule he
invaded 24 major cities and also some other settlements in West Africa that
weren't yet countries but some of the places he invaded include modern-day
Senegal Burkina Faso Naga Gemma via Guinea and the Ivory Coast and with all
of these new lands came a lot of resources and therefore money Mali soon
became Africa's number one producer of gold and soul
and unlike today when all of that money is tied to a country's central bank
instead it all belonged to him Mansa Musa had unlimited access to this money
and he did very extravagant things he was very religious a devout Muslim and
one day he decided to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca to do this he'd have to pass
through the country of Egypt and the Sahara Desert so he took with him his
entire royal court this included many officials soldiers and entertainers
there were also merchants camel riders goats and sheep that they used for food
and in total 60,000 men many described it like a giant city moving through a
desert all of the thousands of people in his Caravan were draped in gold and
Persian sail they had hundreds of camels and each one was carrying hundreds of
pounds of pure gold he also lavishly handed out this goal to
anyone in Cairo Egypt where he stayed for four months
this caused the price of gold to plummet in the region for ten years destroying
the economy in fact Mansa Musa's generosity led to a 1.5 billion dollar
economic loss for the Middle East after Mansa Musa returned back from Mecca he
brought with him a poet the poet was actually from anta Luisa
Spain and that's because Mansa Musa by now had made a big mark on the world
stage prior to his gigantic expedition to Mecca no one in the world stage
really knew him but by now he was famous worldwide he paid this Spanish poet 8.2
million dollars and in exchange this poet would contribute to the arts
architecture and literature in Mali this later led to Marley becoming the center
of education for people around the world believe it or not wealthy people would
travel all around the world to study in the capital city of Timbuktu and Mansa
Musa is often credited as starting the tradition of education in West Africa in
1337 Mansa Musa was aged 57 by this time he had a net worth of well over 400
billion dollars today but sadly he passed away that year and his empire was
left to his two sons however his two sons were nowhere near as good as him
and could not hold Mali together the smaller states which they'd invaded
broke off and the Empire crumble also Europeans came to
the region and took much of the Empire's lair and that's why Miley is quite a
small and poor country today despite it being so big and rich years ago but
nevertheless it's still amazing to hear the lesser-known story of Mansa Musa the
richest man to ever live British Prime Minister Winston Churchill says history
is written by victors and that's very true which is likely why we haven't
heard much about Mansa Musa before so Mansa Musa is four times as rich as the
current richest man Jeff Bezos but did you know that someone actually came
pretty close to matching Mansa Musa's wealth and he was an American the
richest American to ever live was known as Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie was a
Scottish American industrialist who nearly had a net worth of 400 billion
dollars he made his fortune in steel and at a peak his net worth was 372 billion
dollars but unfortunately for him he did not break the world record which remains
to be held by Mansa Musa but now it's time to make your opinion hurt do you
think that Jeff Bezos will overtake Mansa Musa and have a net worth of 400
billion dollars votes in the poll in the top right corner and let me know if you
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