Page 41 - Quantum Times 2020 Summer Edition

QUANTUM TIMES

man throughout history. His net worth was
21
much higher than Jeff Bezos, and unlike

many billionaires today, he directly helped
people with his wealth and forever marked

his name in history.
Mansa Musa, the emperor of the Mali

empire was born in 1280 in Mali of west

Africa. In 1312, he became the emperor of
the Mali empire after his predecessor had

gone missing, and with Mansa Musa coming
to throne, he started his long reign of 25

years. In 1324, he started his 4000 mile

pilgrimage to the Muslim holy city of Mecca.
While he was on his way, he took control of

the land Gao and Timbuktu, the capital and

one of the most important cities of the
Songhai kingdom. After conquering the two

cities, Mansa Musa continued to expand his

empire taking over many territories such as
5 the current day’s Senegal, Guinea, Niger,

Nigeria, and Chad which is around 2,000
miles of land. After his pilgrimage, he owned

The Real Richest a sizable portion of west Africa, making the

Man Mali empire one of the biggest empires in
the world at that time. Also, with the 24
B Y A L A N W . G R 9
conquered cities, it unlocked many more
When you are asked who the world’s richest trade routes that allowed them to trade

man is, you would probably think of Bill Gates with more countries.

or Jeff Bezos; that might be true if we’re talking The richest man today is the founder of
about people today, but if we look throughout Amazon with over 145 billion USD in net

history, it was actually an emperor of the Mali worth. Just the amount of money Jeff Bezos

empire that was the world’s richest has is incomprehensible for ordinary people,
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