In 1324 a man walked through Cairo and accidentally destroyed its economy. Not through war. Not through conquest. Simply by being too generous. He gave away so much gold to the poor, the merchants and the officials he passed — that the value of gold in Egypt collapsed overnight. It took twelve years to recover. That man was Mansa Musa — Emperor of the Mali Empire — and the richest human being who has ever lived. Today Elon Musk is worth approximately 300 billion dollars. Historians attempted to calculate Mansa Musa's wealth in modern terms and gave up. The number is too large for our current financial vocabulary to contain.
In this video:
• How the Mali Empire became the wealthiest civilization on earth — and why Europe had no idea it existed
• The predecessor who sailed into the Atlantic with 2,000 canoes and was never seen again
• The 12 year preparation for a single pilgrimage — 60,000 people, 80 camels, 18 tons of gold
• What happened when Mansa Musa arrived in Cairo and started giving gold to strangers
• How one man's generosity crashed an entire economy for 12 years
• The University of Sankore — 25,000 students, one million manuscripts — in 14th century West Africa
• The 1375 Catalan Atlas — and how one image of Mansa Musa sitting on a golden throne directly triggered the European Age of Exploration
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The history you were taught had a gap in it. While Europe was in darkness — there was a civilization on the other side of the Sahara so wealthy, so intellectually extraordinary, that its emperor could walk through Cairo giving gold to strangers — and still be the richest person who ever lived.
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