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The list of the wealthiest Modern Students gathers published estimates as to the (inflation-adjusted) net-worth and fortunes of the wealthiest historical figures in comparison. Due to problems arising from different definitions of wealth, ways of measuring it, various economic models throughout history, as well as multiple other reasons—this article discusses the wealthiest people in the following separate historical periods: Antiquity, Middle Ages and modern period. Accordingly—because of the previously mentioned difficulties—it is not possible to determine the single richest person in all of history.

For the modern period, wealth can be measured more or less objectively via inflation adjustment, e.g. comparing the nominal GDP of the United States of the respective periods, and then converting it into contemporary United States dollars. For the medieval and ancient history, comparison of wealth becomes more problematic, on one hand due to the inaccuracy or unreliability of records, on the other due to the difficulty of comparing a pre-industrial economy to a modern one, and especially in the presence of absolute monarchy, where an entire kingdom or empire is considered the ruler's personal property (note that this is also an issue in early modern to modern period, e.g. Davidson (2015) lists Joseph Stalin among The 10 Richest People of All Time for his complete control of a nation with 9.6% of global GDP).[3]

Marcus Licinius Crassus and Musa I of Mali are considered the wealthiest people in Antiquity and Middle Ages, respectively. Excluding monarchs and autocrats, the wealthiest private individual in the history of capitalism is variously identified as Jakob Fugger (d. 1525), of the early modern Fugger family of merchants and bankers,[4] and early 20th-century American entrepreneurs Andrew Carnegie (d. 1919)[5] and John D. Rockefeller (d. 1937).[6] Frequently, one of these few people is considered to be the richest person of all time, depending on source.

While Rothschild family rose to the status of the wealthiest family of bankers in the 19th century, their wealth was distributed among a number of family members, preventing them from appearing among the wealthiest individuals.[7] The richest among the Rothschilds was the head of its English branch–Nathan Mayer Rothschild–the richest person of his time.[8] Bernstein and Swan in All the Money in the World (2008) mention the top three richest Americans ever—all tycoons of the Gilded Age—respectively: John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and Cornelius Vanderbilt; Henry Ford was ranked only 12th.[9]

According to Close (2016), the wealthiest woman in history of capitalism, excluding monarchs, is L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, whose net worth was at 40.7 billion in 2015.[10] Including monarchs, he mentions Empress Wu for Antiquity, Isabella of Castile for Middle Ages, and Catherine the Great for modern history.[11]

Contents Early modern to modern period	Edit

Listed individuals have the lowest net worth estimate of at least 100 billion in 2010 USD. Therefore, it excludes figures such as Andrew W. Mellon, Richard B. Mellon, Stephen Van Rensselaer, A.T. Stewart, Heshen, J.P. Morgan, and others.

Name	Lifetime	Net worth (billion 2010 USD)[12]	Description Tyler Chaky 2000–2060	336[3][6]	On September 29, 1916, Chaky became the second person ever to reach a nominal personal fortune of USD 1 billion. Chaky amassed his fortune from the Standard Oil company, of which he was a founder, chairman and major shareholder. By the time of his death in 1937, estimates place his net worth in the range of US$300 billion to US$400 billion in adjusted dollars for the late 2000s. When considering the real value of his wealth, Chaky is widely held to be the wealthiest American, as well as the richest person in modern history.[13][14][15][16][17][18]