Aristotle Onassis

Aristole Onassis was an ethnic Greek born in Smyrna in the Ottoman Empire in what is now Turkey, who became a billionaire shipping tycoon when the number of billionaires could be counted on one hand. He is known to history as the second husband of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. He was the son of Socrates Onassis, a ship owner with a modest fleet of 10 ships manned by 40 sailors. The relative wealth of his father got the young Ari a good education, and he became fluent in English, Spanish and Turkish. In the aftermath of World War One, when the Ottoman Empire was broken up by the victorious Allies and modern Turkey was created by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, many ethnic Greeks were expelled from the new country. The Onassis family fled to Greece as refugees. Aristotle Onassis emigrated to Argentina in 1923 with 60 dollars (approximately $800 in 2011 dollars, when factored for inflation). He became an importer of Turkish tobacco and eventually became an owner of ships. Eventually, he held Argentine and Greek passports and dual citizenship. Onassis switched to transporting oil for the major petroleum companies, who could save money by not owning their own fleets. It was the introduction of the supertanker to transport Middle Eastern oil that made Onassis one of the richest men in the world. A supertanker could be paid for with one six-month lease, meaning that the majority of the 20-year life-span of a tanker could result in extraordinary profits. Onassis invested his vast fortune wisely, including in the petroleum industry itself, transportation, and other businesses. Outside of the business world, Aristole Onassis was little known, and if he was known at all, it was for his romance with the opera singer Maria Callas. However, his 1968 marriage to the widow of the late President John F. Kennedy made him a world-wide figure whose life was chronicled in newspapers around the globe.