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applegrove

(118,006 posts)
Sat Mar 9, 2019, 09:56 PM Mar 2019

Mansa Musa: The richest man who ever lived

Mansa Musa: The richest man who ever lived

By Naima Mohamud

BBC Africa

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-47379458?ocid=socialflow_twitter

"SNIP.....

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world, according to the 2019 Forbes billionaires' list released this week. With an estimated fortunate of $131bn (£99bn) he is the wealthiest man in modern history.

But he is by no means the richest man of all time.

That title belongs to Mansa Musa, the 14th Century West African ruler who was so rich his generous handouts wrecked an entire country's economy.

"Contemporary accounts of Musa's wealth are so breathless that it's almost impossible to get a sense of just how wealthy and powerful he truly was," Rudolph Butch Ware, associate professor of history at the University of California, told the BBC.

Mansa Musa was "richer than anyone could describe", Jacob Davidson wrote about the African king for Money.com in 2015.


.....SNIP"

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MFM008

(19,774 posts)
3. I thought the honor belonged to Jacob Fugger
Sat Mar 9, 2019, 11:51 PM
Mar 2019

worth one half a trillion dollars in today's money.
He was an interesting character as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_Fugger

Kind of Blue

(8,709 posts)
8. Not when economic historians, as per
Sun Mar 10, 2019, 01:32 PM
Mar 2019

the article and what I've read all my life, agree that his wealth is impossible to pin down to a number" and Musa's estimated worth today is $400 billion, and your link compares Fugger to John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie whose wealth are below Musa's, then no. The honor does not belong to Fugger.

Kind of Blue

(8,709 posts)
6. Holy Fuck, what an incredibly ignorant response.
Sun Mar 10, 2019, 01:25 PM
Mar 2019

Last edited Sun Mar 10, 2019, 02:06 PM - Edit history (1)

If you bothered to read the article, instead of a nasty remark about 2 whole groups of people, of which I'm one of them, you'd find Musa was from Mali and not Nigeria.

"Nice" of you to remain willfully ignorant by demeaning an educational post. Good grief, just when I start thinking liberals are different from their conservative brothers, someone comes and proves me wrong.

dameatball

(7,380 posts)
10. It was indeed an interesting article and my comment was in jest. My apologies that it was not
Sun Mar 10, 2019, 02:41 PM
Mar 2019

apparent.

Kind of Blue

(8,709 posts)
11. It was apparent to me that your comment was a joke, one better suited
Sun Mar 10, 2019, 03:10 PM
Mar 2019

for CPAC.

Still, I do appreciate your apology to justify it as just a joke, as if that magically erases it's insulting nature. Know your audience.

Kind of Blue

(8,709 posts)
9. Thanks for the article! The only exception I have though
Sun Mar 10, 2019, 02:04 PM
Mar 2019

is the depiction of Musa's caravan of all white men. He was a black African as black as Malians are today. I think this is the earliest representation of Musa, 1280-1337, by Jewish-Moroccan cartographer Abraham Cresques, 1325-87. The article's image is from 1670 by an unknown artist.

Kind of Blue

(8,709 posts)
15. Thanks, applegrove. I really appreciate that!
Sun Mar 10, 2019, 08:38 PM
Mar 2019

Many times I have to stop myself from picking every nit when it comes to representation. But I felt that this is a good and necessary OP on DU.

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