Posts Tagged ‘Mali’
Hot posts this week (May 22/2015)
Posted on: June 22, 2015
Hot posts this week (May 22/2015)
Richest person ever: Emperor Mansa Musa, Timbuktu, Mali, and the next richest in history
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Richest person ever: Emperor Mansa Musa, Timbuktu, Mali, and the next richest in history
Posted on: May 21, 2015
Richest person ever: Mansa Musa, Timbuktu, Mali, and the next richest in history
You surely heard of Mansa Musa, the richest person ever.
The 14th century emperor from West Africa was worth a staggering $400 billion, after adjusting for inflation, as calculated by Celebrity Net Worth.
To put that number into perspective — if that’s even possible — Net Worth’s calculations mean Musa’s fortune far outstrips that of the current world’s richest man Carlos Slim Helu and the other rich people combined.
According to Forbes, the Mexican telecom giant’s net worth is $69 billion.
Slim edges out the world’s second wealthiest man, Bill Gates, who is worth $61 billion, according to Forbes.
Mansa Musa Of Mali Named World’s Richest Man Of All Time;
Gates And Buffet Also Make List
Some of the oldest fortunes in question date back 1,000 years.
No. 7 on the list, for example, is William the Conqueror.
The illegitimate son of the Duke of Normandy, William lived between 1028-1087 and gained infamy for invading and seizing England in 1066.
According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, when Musa died sometime in the 1330s, he left behind an empire filled with palaces and mosques, some of which still stand today.
But the emperor really turned historic heads for the over-the-top extravagances of his 1324 pilgrimage to Mecca. (Mecca royal family must have reaped wealth due to these pilgrimage?)
The trip, which he embarked up on during the 17th year of the monarch’s glittering reign, was hosted by the leaders of both Mecca and Cairo and apparently was so brilliant, it “almost put Africa’s sun to shame.”
Musa’s wealth was a result of his country’s vast natural resources. The West African nation was responsible for more than half of the world’s salt and gold supply, according to Net Worth.
Of course, the entry also notes that the fortune was also fleeting. Just two generations later, his net worth was gone — wasted away by invaders and infighting.
As The Independent points out, while the numbers bandied about by this newest list are shocking, many aspects of the run-down aren’t surprising: there are no women included, for example, and only three of the richest men are still alive today.
Americans dominate the list, however, taking 14 of the 26 spots, including slots two and three. (In just 2 centuries?)
The “poorest” man on the list is Warren Buffet, who had a peak net worth of $64 billion. Buffet, a noted philanthropist, has since given billions of his fortune away, and Forbes now lists his net worth at closer to $44 billion.
Try to add up the net worth of the Rothschild family below and this family has amassed worth trillion from wars in Europe, USA and the rest of the world. They also own the Federal reserve bank.
Patsy Z shared this link
Meet Mansa Musa, one of the wealthiest people in history:
Jessica Smith tells the story of how Mansa Musa literally put his empire – and himself – on the map.
ed.ted.com
Click through below for the 26 Richest Men Ever:
Estimated worth: $400 billion
Estimated worth: $350 billion (Pictured: Nathan Mayer Rothschild)
Estimated worth: $340 billion
Estimated Worth: $310 billion
Estimated worth: $300 billion
Estimated worth: $236 billion
Estimated worth: $229.5 billion
Estimated worth: $200 billionEstimated worth: $199 billion
Estimated worth: $185 billion
Estimated worth: $178.65 billion
Estimated worth: $136 billion
Estimated worth: $146.13 billion (Pictured: St Peter’s Church in Ardingly, UK believed to have been established by the family of William de Warenne)
Estimated worth: $121 billion
Estimated worth: $118.6 billion (Pictured: Richard Fitzalan, 10th Earl of Arundel and his countess Eleanor)
Estimated worth: $110 billion (Pictured: Tomb of John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster)
Estimated worth: $105 billion
Estimated worth: $90 billion
Estimated worth: $85.1 billion
Estimated worth: $80 billion
And the rest:
21. Jay Gould (railroad tycoon, 1836-1892) $71 billion
22. Carlos Slim (business magnate, 1940- ) $68 billion
23. Stephen Van Rensselaer (land owner, 1764- 1839) $68 billion
24. Marshall Field (Marshall Field & Company founder, 1834-1906) $66 billion
25. Sam Walton (Walmart founder, 1918-1992) $65 billion
26. Warren Buffett (investor, 1930- ) $64 billion
The house in Beit-Chabab, (continue 8)
My grand dad had a house in Beit-Chabab but it was been rented for over 30 years, and the house was rundown and needed major repairs. After the death of Dad’s father Antoun, and the definitive return of my family to Lebanon in 1961, and the children about to join universities, my father had to start a lengthy legal ejection proceeding.
Father spent plenty of money to repairing this crumbling house. We enjoyed barely two summer vacations in it, before dad’s mother and his younger brother Jean decided to return to Lebanon and stay in it.
I used to watch one of my grandmother’s father Toufic (about 80 of age) plowing the large garden, but mother never encouraged me to walk and care for it because of probable snakes and other insects that she was terribly scared of: Mother had close encounters with snakes in the house in Africa.
Yes, extra safety is not complementary to happiness and natural development. When Jean and then grandmother died ten years later, one of dad’s sisters decided to return to Lebanon and she stayed in the house. The whole lot cannot be sold because of the many inheritance problems with a large extended family; two of dad’s sisters are still alive and they are refusing to dispose of the property when we are in great need of financial support.
Something about our childhood, my brother Ghassan, sister Raymonde, and I
I read auto-biographical accounts of Edward Said and Carlos Ghosn and I found similarity in our upbringing and I said: “why not?” I was born in Bamako, the Capital of Mali that was then under French mandate or colony, and mother breast-fed me for at least 3 years and mother never let me off her sight.
I started schooling in Africa (Sikasso) when I was five, with the French White Brethren for 3 months and I was doing great and mother told me that I had memorized the multiplication tables in such a short period. The deaf black boy used to take me on his bicycle to school.
Shortly after, I suffered from Typhoid fever in 1954 and almost died. The French commander (Mali was still a French colony) flew me and mother to the Capital Bamako and I stayed for weeks in a refrigerated chamber. When I got up from bed I had to re-learn how to walk and talk.
My parents decided to whisk me to Lebanon where the climate is more favorable. My 3-year old brother Ghassan, three years younger than I, and I were enrolled in an intern school (boarding school) in Beit-Chabab belonging to the Christian Maronite brethren.
I didn’t know a single word of Arabic and it was a completely new world for me who lived at home for the last 6 years. In the same year of 1956 Lebanon experienced a major earthquake and I remember someone carrying me in his arms at night and depositing me in the open parking lot where everyone converged. Dad once lambasted the government for exacting the “earthquake tax” for over 20 years.
It seems that I was bright, but mostly I was much older than my classmates, and the next year the school decided that I could skip a year and that was my downfall. In Lebanon, most kids start schooling at the age of three. I cannot remember a thing of my first year in Lebanon; maybe I was too traumatized and my brain decided that burying my memory of this year is beneficial for my mental health.
My parents used to visit us every two years during summer and we had to re-learn that they were indeed our folks. We used to flee the rented summer-house and walk up two miles to school, taking shortcuts.
School used to take us on walking trips on Sundays and when we passed my grandfather Toufic shop in Haret Al Ta7tat (the lower part of Beit Chabab), I used to stop at the shop and I was handed a handful of sweets and “kdameh” (dried cabanza beans).
My much younger sister (6 years younger) joined us in Beit Chabab and was “incarcerated” in the nuns’ boarding school of Sacred Hearts. My sister had a rough time there…
My early years (Continue 7)
I don’t remember much of my first five years in Africa; maybe the trauma of my typhoid disease erased most of my early memory. Mother BREAST FED ME FOR THREE years, as she did with my brother later, and she was very protective and kept a close watch over her first-born child. I had a hard birth and the physician didn’t expect me to live more than two days; I would not breast feed and in desperation, mother forced milk into my mouth. Mother told me that I was made to spend my days on the counter top of the shop and I used to drill holes in the Nestle milk cans. I tend to corroborate Amelie Nothomb hypothesis that lack of palate sugar voluptuousness is a main factor for slow brain development. Most probably, mother didn’t indulge me with chocolate or sweet condiments; thus, I took my revenge destroying valuables or maybe to licking the sugary Nestle.
On the other front of verbal development I had a “boubou” or a very young African mute as personal friend or “body-guard”. I have a picture with Boubou sitting on his heels while I am riding a small tricycle. It is natural for babies to learn easily all languages, including sign and eye languages; I assume that I communicated well with “boubou” and we had great friendship and affection since maybe my first fully developed language was the mute related language. I can assume that verbal communication in three other languages simultaneously might have been very hard; Lebanese/Arabic, French and “Bambara” (the main language in Mali). Not that comprehending multiple languages is difficult for babies but the people are difficult to understand for the contradictory meanings they convey. Not that homonym and synonyms and all the “yms” in languages are serious obstacles to a baby’s flexible mind, but the minds and emotions of mature talking people are insurmountable barriers for clear directions. I guess that I have set the grounds for plausible sources of my verbal unintelligible adventure. I went to school at the french Brethren for only three months before I fell dangerously ill and managed to learn the multiplication tables. An African helper would take me on his bicycle to school.
Why my parents decided to leave Africa?
My parents had a very prosperous business and were very liked in Sikassou; they had to sell their business and house in 1961for cheap after the Independence of Mali from the colonial power France: Dad was too afraid to end up in prison if he were caught smuggling out his hard-earned money. They sold their properties to the White French Brethren who paid the money but my folks never received a dime. It seems one of my “uncles” who received the money on behalf of my dad invested the money for his own benefit and lost his money again.
The English language uses “uncle” to represent any older relation to the family but Arabic has special names to discriminate the sort and relative side in the relations. For example, my mother has five sisters “khalaat” and their husbands are called “3adeel” (the number 3 is used in Arabic internet to represent a special Arabic vocal close to aa); dad has five sisters “3amaat” and their husbands are “sohor”. Thus in Arabic specific names differentiate among these uncles; even the real close uncles, from the mother and father sides, have words of their own.
All of us, kids, were born in Mali and were transferred to Lebanon in order not to be exposed to the numerous tropical diseases. In actuality, we were not saved physically or emotionally or mentally from other kinds of diseases that plagued our development and we had to suffer the consequences of hard decisions that our folks were faced with.
When dad opened a shop in Lebanon then he had to close it within three years because clients would not repay their accounts. Mother used to go with her sister Therese to Downtown Beirut to shop for dad and she enjoyed that part in the business very much.
