John Davison Rockefeller (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American industrialist. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of modern philanthropy. In 1870, he founded the Standard Oil Company, and as gasoline grew in import so did Rockefeller’s wealth. He became the world’s richest man and first American billionaire. Credited as the richest person in history.

2. Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877)

Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt was a transporation tycoon, and according to “The Wealthy 100″ by Michael Klepper and Robert Gunther, Vanderbilt would be worth $143 billion in 2007 dollars, A current famous descendant in the family is journalist Anderson Cooper, son of Gloria Vanderbilt and great-grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt II. transportation tycoon.

3. John Jacob Astor (1763-1848)

Fur magnate and founder of a renowned family of Anglo-American capitalists, business leaders, and philanthropists. His American Fur Company is considered the first U.S. business monopoly.Astor started a fur-goods shop in New York City about 1786 after learning about the fur trade while aboard the ship that brought him to the U.S. Benefitting from the Jay Treaty between England and the U.S.

4. Stephen Girard (1750-1831)

Stephen Girard did start with a handicap, being born blind in one eye. It may have been a personality disorder which drove him to precise, minute instructions to his subordinates in excruciating detail. Although he left the largest estate in the nation’s history, that estate continued to accumulate money from his minute instructions to executors,  enlarging his vast fortune fifty-fold, a century after his death.

5 . Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919)

Carnegie started as a telegrapher and by the 1860s had investments in railroads, railroad sleeping cars, bridges and oil derricks. He built further wealth as a bond salesman raising money for American enterprise in Europe. He is often regarded as the second-richest man in history after John D. Rockefeller. He earned most of his fortune in the steel industry, but spent his last years as a philanthropist. From 1901 forward,

6. Bill Gates (1955 – )

William Henry “Bill” Gates III is an American business magnate, philanthropist, and chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen. He is ranked consistently one of the world’s wealthiest people and the wealthiest overall as of 2009. He also  remains the largest individual shareholder with more than 8 percent of the common stock.

7. Alexander Turney Stewart (1803-1876)

Alexander Turney Stewart was a successful Irish American entrepreneur who made his multi-million fortune in what was at the time the most extensive and lucrative dry goods business in the world. He was a business genius, and by 1848 he had built a large marble-fronted store which was devoted to the wholesale branch of his business, and the largest retail store in the world at that time.