Here the 10 richest men ever in world history featuring two Africans

If you ask anyone who are the richest people in history, the most obvious answer will be King Solomon, Bill Gates, and then maybe banking families and businessmen in Europe.

Most people in Africa and elsewhere will not give a chance to an African to make the list of the top 25 richest people in the history of the world.

A large part of this is down to colonialism with many records and evidence of African culture either shipped abroad of methodically destroyed to destroy the pride, culture and identity of many African communities.

The idea of Africans being inferior to Europeans was so perpetuated that even now unless for a lover of history few can appreciate and understand just how far ahead Africans were at a time when many Europeans were battling disease and famine in their kingdoms.

Celebrity Net worth compiled a list of the 25 richest people in history factoring in inflation.

The list uses the annual 2199.6 per cent rate of inflation to adjust historic fortunes – a formula that means $100 million in 1913 would be equal to £2.299.63 billion today.

According to the list here are the top 10 richest people in the history of the world

10. Cornelius Vanderbilt (industrialist, 1794-1877) $185 billion

9. Henry Ford (Ford Motor Company founder, 1863-1947) $199 billion

8. Muammar Gaddafi (former Libyan leader, 1942-2011) $200 billion

As celebrity net worth reports,

‘After his death in 2011, reports surfaced that Muammar Gaddafi was secretly the wealthiest person in the world with a net worth of $200 billion. In the months surrounding his death nearly $70 billion in cash was seized in foreign bank accounts and real estate’

7. William the Conqueror (King of England, 1028-1087) $229.5 billion

6. Osman Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VII (last ruler of Hyderabad, 1886-1967) $236 billion

5. Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (last Emperor of Russia, 1868-1918) $300 billion

4. Andrew Carnegie (industrialist, 1835-1919) $310 billion

3. John D Rockefeller (industrialist, 1839-1937) $340 billion

2. Rothschild Family (banking dynasty, 1740- ) $350 billion

1. Mansa Musa I, (Ruler of Malian Empire, 1280-1331) $400 billion

The Times describe Mansa Keita Musa I as being as rich beyond description. He was the tenth king of the Mali empire from 1312-1337.

It was during his trip to Mecca that the outside word knew about him and made records about his vast wealth and prestige.

He ruled all (or parts) of modern day Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Chad. He supplied about half of the world’s salt and Gold.

In his trip to Mecca, he would gift the cities he passed through and gave the poor in Egypt so much gold that the price of the metal was devalued for the next 10 years in Egypt.

He was forced on his trip to borrow back much of the gold from dealers to try and rectify the gold market. Mansa Musa built mosques and education centers including a university at Timbuktu where some of the leading scholars from Africa and Arabia resided.