Perhaps the richest person who ever lived, Mansa Musa I has (despite being at the center of one of history’s most interesting stories) largely been forgotten by history due to a lack of focus and study on Africa, from which he came.
Musa became emperor of Mali in 1312 when then-emperor Abubakari II deputized Musa to temporarily assume his role. Through trading gold and salt, which were found in abundance in West Africa at the time, Musa amassed an enormous fortune.
Though Musa had become fabulously wealthy through trade, the rest of the world only became aware of the extent of his wealth when he embarked on a pilgrimage to Mecca.
His caravan traveled throughout Cairo, Medina, and finally to Mecca with a procession of more than 60,000 people, dozens of animals, and plenty of gold. In fact, as they traveled, Musa and his entourage gave gold away to people in the streets.
They bought so many goods that they messed up the global economy for a while because he sizably increased the amount of gold in circulation.
Musa used his gold to build a great number of mosques, to the point that legend says he built one every Friday of his reign. The most famous of the mosques he commissioned is the Djinguereber Mosque in Timbuktu, Mali.
When adjusted for inflation, Musa’s wealth is believed to have been around $400 billion. The only person who comes close to Musa’s wealth is John D. Rockefeller, who economists believe amassed a worth of around $336 billion when adjusted for inflation.