John D Sr Rockefeller

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American industrialist and founder of Standard Oil Company, he is widely considered the wealthiest American of all time, and the richest person in modern history. Indeed, John D. Rockefeller became the world's first confirmed U.S. dollar billionaire in 1916, and still holds the title of history's wealthiest individual. The son of a penniless, bigamous con man and patent-medicine salesman, he turned his shady family name into a synonym for prodigious wealth and worldly success. A strict evangelical Baptist, he had no trouble reconciling his principles with unethical business practices, mandating the industry, forcing competitors out of business, bribing officials and blithely ignoring attempts to limit his rapacious accumulation of power. At the time of his retirement in 1902, his fortune was estimated at more than one billion dollars. At the same time, he was a philanthropist who established four great charitable corporations. He was married and had five kids. Rockefeller died of arteriosclerosis at 4:05 A.M. on 23 May 1937, less than two months shy of his 98th birthday, in Ormond Beach, Florida, leaving an estate of more than $26 million, most of which passed to his son, John D. Jr, before his death. Link to Wikipedia biography