Hello and welcome to more or less here on the BBC World Service. Let's start with a big number.

400 billion US dollars. That's the estimated fortune of the richest man that ever lived.

It's not Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos from the 21st century or a Rockefeller or a Rothschild

from the 19th century. But Manson Musa, the ruler of the West African Marley and Empire,

in the 14th century.

This king is the richest and most noble lord of all of this region due to the abundance of gold

which is collected in his land. He left no court amire nor holder of a royal office without

the gift of a load of gold. The people of Cairo made incalculable profits out of him and his men

in buying and selling and giving and taking. Yes today we're going to tell the story of Manson Musa,

the man the BBC, the independent CNBC, the Smithsonian and the History Channel have all called

the richest man who ever lived. For that we'll have to travel back seven centuries but we'll also

tell the story of how he got to the top of the rich list and for that we'll only have to travel back

seven years. Manson Musa was born in the year 1218 or at least that's the best guess. We don't

actually know when he was born or when he died and that's the big problem we have with Manson Musa.

We don't know that much about him. We have a few mentions of him by Arab historians but nothing

written at the time of the events of his life or by anyone who actually met him. What we can be

sure of is that he was born into the Marlion Royal family and he inherited the Marlion Empire

from his brother, Mansa Abu Bakr, who sailed off across the Atlantic never to be seen again.

Dr. Afusu Mansa Abbafeo, the head of the Department of History at the University of Ghana in Acro.

Manson Musa was a kin of Mali who became a kin in the year 1312. He embellished himself with the

good ornament during the sevens also. His empire covered an area the size of western Europe.

The kingdom stretched for about 2000 miles from the Atlantic Ocean all the way to modern day Nijer,

...