Who was the richest person in history? That’s difficult to determine without financial records, and even if they were available, there are different measures of wealth. How would you compare the size of a realm to number of slaves to gold in the coffers to global power, especially in different historical eras? However, there is evidence that the richest person in history may have been King Musa Keita I of the Mali Empire, who had all those things in abundance.
Jessica Smith presents a TED-Ed lesson on Mansa Musa, animated by Sandro Katamashvili. See pictures from the era of Mansa Musa at Business Insider. -via the Presurfer