who was the richest person ever to live?

Answer 1

That's difficult to calculate. There were times that the only wealth was land. How do you calculate that in contemporary dollars? The same with the ownership of real estate, factories, resources, stocks and bonds. Even pure cash or gold bullion suffers from inflation.

Forbes magazine in 2006 did research on this, and came out with this list in US Dollars :

"# Name Age When Current Age Wealth in Billion USD Origin Current Residence Company"

"1. John Davison Rockefeller 98 98 189 United States United States Standard Oil Company"
"2. Haroldson Lafayette Hunt Jr. 75 85 122 United States United States Hunt Refining Company"
"3. William Henry Gates III 44 51 100 United States United States Microsoft"
"5. Lawrence Joseph Ellison 55 61 58 United States United States Oracle Corporation"
"6. Walton family - - 48 United States United States Wal-Mart "
"7. Warren Buffett (Edward) 76 76 46 United States United States Berkshire Hathaway"
"8. Howard Robard Hughes Jr. 45 50 41,4 United States United States TWA"
"9. Paul Gardner Allen 48 53 40,0 United States United States Microsoft"
"10. John Werner Kluge 70 92 40 Germany United States Metropolitan Broadcasting Company"

"List of most wealthy historical figures" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_wealthy_historical_figures

Answer 2

Eriv Van is right. This question embraces all of history, and with it all countries. It's very hard to calculate the relative worth of the English pound and the Spanish real in 1680, as the science of statistics didn't exist, nor did the science of economics. It also doesn't allow for inflation. $60 billion today would only be calculated at about $20 billion in 1955. Also, the notion of wealth is complicated by the fact that the things available today (cell phones, for example), wouldn't have been available for any amount of money in 1960, before they were invented.

Answer 3

bILL GATES