The Kong family: one hereditary office for 79 generations
1055Song court grants Confucius's descendants the title Duke Yansheng
QufuTax-exempt estates support the family and the temple
1935Title becomes a government office
2009Kung Tsui-chang, 79th generation, takes the office
2026He holds it today
Fugger loans to a king who refused his father's inheritance
1367Fugger family in Augsburg
1516Fuggerei housing founded; rent still about €0.88 a year
28 Jun 1519Charles V elected with 850,000 florins in loans, 543,000 from the Fugger
1701–1714War of the Spanish Succession
1713Pragmatic Sanction lets a daughter inherit Austria
1740–1748Maria Theresa inherits; War of the Austrian Succession
15 Mar 2020Felipe VI renounces his father's inheritance after reports on a foundation abroad
The Pizarros: from a killing in Lima to a title granted in 2019
26 Jun 1541Francisco Pizarro and his half-brother Francisco Martín de Alcántara killed in Lima
20 Nov 1542New Laws bar inheriting encomiendas; partly revoked 1545
10 Apr 1548Gonzalo Pizarro beheaded; his estates and Potosí mines confiscated; his Lima house razed
1628–1631Marquis of the Conquest title created for a descendant; sources differ on the year
2019Title granted to María Pérez de Herrasti y Urquijo
Cortés: a conquest estate, sold off, and a hospital still open
c. 1524Cortés founds the Hospital de Jesús in Mexico City
1529Crown creates the Marquisate of the Valley of Oaxaca as an entailed estate
2 Dec 1547Cortés dies after a codicil to his Seville will
1566Crown seizes the marquisate after a conspiracy
after 1836Estate passes to the Pignatelli dukes in Italy; Lucas Alamán sells the Mexican holdings
1938Mexico expropriates foreign oil companies
2026The hospital is open; Cortés's remains have been there since 1794
Opium money to a US president's mother
31 Dec 1600East India Company chartered
1718Elihu Yale, a former Company official in Madras, gives goods and 417 books to the college that takes his name
c. 1832Sassoon family moves from Baghdad to Bombay; Jardine Matheson founded at Canton
by 1843Warren Delano Jr. prospers in opium as senior partner of Russell & Co.
laterDelano puts the money into ships, mines, Manhattan property and railroads
1882Delano's grandson Franklin D. Roosevelt is born to his daughter Sara
Rothschild: Wellington's army pay to a 2023 buyout
from 1811Nathan Rothschild moves pay to Wellington's troops
1835Nathan Rothschild lends £15m for the payments to slave owners
1875British government buys Suez Canal shares with £4m from Rothschild
from c. 1882Edmond de Rothschild funds Jewish settlement in Palestine and buys more than 125,000 acres
1938Louis Rothschild ransomed from the Nazis in Vienna
1981France nationalises the Paris bank; the family rebuilds from 1983
2023Rothschild & Co taken private for €3.7bn
Romanov palaces to the US National Gallery
1613Romanovs elected to the throne
186123 million serfs freed; the state pays landlords
1917–1918Nicholas II abdicates; the family is shot at Yekaterinburg
1918Private art collections nationalised
1928–1934The Soviet state sells about 250 Hermitage paintings; Andrew Mellon buys 21 for $6.654m
1941National Gallery of Art opens on Mellon's gift
1995Loans-for-shares: Norilsk 51% for $170.1m, Yukos 45% for $159m
2022UK sanctions Abramovich; Chelsea sold for £2.5bn, proceeds frozen
Spanish land grants to the largest private landowner in the US
1849Waggoner Ranch founded in Texas
1862–1864Pacific Railroad grants: more than 175 million acres go to railroads (1850–1871)
3 Jan 1900James J. Hill sells Weyerhaeuser 900,000 acres at $6 an acre
28 May 1923Santa Rita No. 1 strikes oil on Texas university land
1930H.L. Hunt buys the East Texas leases for about $1.34m, $30,000 in cash
1991Electra Waggoner Biggs sues to break up the 520,527-acre ranch
2016Waggoner Ranch sold to Stan Kroenke
2026Kroenke ranked first, more than 2.7 million acres
Rhodes and the Oppenheimers: diamonds to Botswana's 15%
1888Cecil Rhodes and Charles Rudd launch De Beers
1889British South Africa Company chartered
1902Rhodes dies; his estate goes to the Rhodes Trust and the scholarships
1913Natives Land Act restricts African land ownership
1917Ernest Oppenheimer founds Anglo American
2004South Africa ends private ownership of mineral rights
2011The Oppenheimers sell their 40% of De Beers to Anglo American for $5.1bn
2026De Beers: Anglo American 85%, Botswana 15%
Thyssen and Bush: a seized bank
WWISamuel P. Bush, a steel executive, coordinates weapons contracts as a federal official
1921Prescott Bush marries Dorothy Walker, daughter of banker G.H. Walker
1923Fritz Thyssen gives 100,000 gold marks through Ludendorff; he joins the Nazi party in 1933 and breaks with it in 1939
Oct 1942US seizes Union Banking Corporation, where Prescott Bush was a director and which handled Thyssen-tied assets. No document found shows he aided the Nazis
1952–1963Prescott Bush is a US senator
1976–1977George H.W. Bush directs the CIA; two Bush presidents follow
Mitsubishi, Manchukuo and three prime ministers
1870Iwasaki Yatarō founds the shipping firm that becomes Mitsubishi
1936Nobusuke Kishi runs industry in Japanese-ruled Manchukuo, where forced Chinese labour is used
1941–1943Kishi is commerce minister; Mitsubishi builds the Zero fighter
1945–1947US occupation dissolves the family holding companies
Dec 1948Kishi released from Sugamo prison, never tried
1957–1960Kishi is prime minister; his brother Eisaku Satō follows 1964–1972
8 Jul 2022Kishi's grandson Shinzo Abe is shot in Nara
Al Saud: forty men to the Ritz-Carlton
1744Alliance between Muhammad ibn Saud and the cleric Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab
15 Jan 1902Abdulaziz takes Riyadh with about 40 men
1925Hejaz and Mecca taken from the Hashemites
1933Oil concession to Standard Oil of California
1946–1948The companies that become Exxon and Mobil join Aramco
1953Ibn Saud dies; the throne passes among his sons
1980The state owns all of Aramco
21 Jun 2017Mohammed bin Nayef removed as heir; Mohammed bin Salman named
4 Nov 2017Ritz-Carlton detentions; settlements reported above $100 billion
Leopold II: a colony as private property, to cobalt in 2026
1884–1885Berlin Conference
1885–1908Leopold II holds the Congo Free State as his own; deaths estimated at 1 to 15 million
1900–1903He puts property into a Royal Donation to keep it from his daughters
1909Leopold dies; his daughters Louise and Stéphanie sue
1965Mobutu takes power in a coup
1997Mobutu falls; Switzerland freezes his assets
2016China's CMOC buys 80% of the Tenke Fungurume mine
2026Congo supplies about 75% of the world's cobalt under export quotas
Grosvenor: a marriage in 1677 to £9 billion in 2016
1677Mary Davies, 12, marries Thomas Grosvenor; about 500 acres come with her
19th c.The land becomes Mayfair and Belgravia, let on long leases
1894Estate duty begins to break up English landed estates
2016The 7th Duke inherits about £9 billion held in trusts
2026Hereditary peers, including dukes, leave the House of Lords
From a Klondike hotel to Abu Dhabi money
1898Friedrich Trump runs a restaurant and hotel during the Klondike gold rush
1954Senate committee examines Fred Trump's profits on federally insured housing
1975Consent decree settles the federal housing discrimination suit
25 Jun 1999Fred Trump dies
2 Oct 2018NYT reports Donald Trump received at least $413M from his father's businesses; his lawyer denies fraud
Nov 2022Mary Trump's suit over the 2001 settlement dismissed
16 Sep 2024World Liberty Financial launched; a Trump entity owns 60%
May 2025Abu Dhabi's MGX uses $2 billion of the USD1 coin in a Binance deal
21 Aug 2025Appeal court voids the $500M civil-fraud penalty; the fraud finding stands