Unique Ability Historical Context The most powerful banking and trading company during the Renaissance, the Florence-based ‘Compagnia dei Bardi’ under the guidance of its patriarch Piero di’ Bardi (named after the family’s…
Melitta Bentz | Civilization VI
Unique Ability Historical Context The best and most profitable – ideas are usually simple. And even a housewife can have a simple idea… and get rich. Born January 1873 in Dresden, Amalie…
Masaru Ibuka | Civilization VI
Unique Ability Historical Context Masaru Ibuka was born in April 1908 AD in Nikko City, and grew into an inquisitive child fond of experimenting with electricity. He became one of the first…
Mary Katherine Goddard | Civilization VI
Unique Ability Historical Context Born in New England in 1738, Mary Katherine Goddard worked with her younger brother to begin a local printing business. While her brother was often away on business,…
Marcus Licinius Crassus | Civilization VI
Unique Ability Historical Context Considered the wealthiest man in Roman history, and one of the richest of all time, Marcus Licinius Crassus was the second of three sons fathered by the influential…
Marco Polo | Civilization VI
Unique Ability Historical Context Likely the most famous tourist in history, the peripatetic Marco Polo was born in Venice in 1254 AD to a wealthy merchant family. Since the primary goal of…
Levi Strauss | Civilization VI
Unique Ability Historical Context The San Francisco gold rush brought hundreds of thousands of fortune seekers to California. Levi Strauss moved there and found a fortune, but not in the hills. Born…
John Spilsbury | Civilization VI
Unique Ability Historical Context The apprentice of the Royal Geographer to King George III, John Spilsbury’s unique geography teaching aid would become his best known invention. Transferring a map of the world…
John Rockefeller | Civilization VI
Unique Ability Historical Context There’s “rich”… and then there’s John D. Rockefeller. Co-founder of the Standard Oil Company in 1870 AD, by the mid-1880s he controlled some 90 percent of all refineries…
John Jacob Astor | Civilization VI
Unique Ability Historical Context The first multi-millionaire of the United States (certainly not the last) and the first to create a corporate trust, John Jacob Astor was a self-made tycoon who built…