Aristotle Onassis

Born

1906 · Smyrna, Ottoman Empire (now İzmir, Turkey)

Roots

Greek, from Anatolia; refugee, then Argentine emigrant

Family

Affluent

A prosperous tobacco-merchant family ruined in the 1922 destruction of Smyrna; relatives died, his father was imprisoned, and the family fled to Greece.

Education

Cut short by the catastrophe; self-taught in business

Started with

~$60

Roughly what he had, by most accounts, landing in Buenos Aires at 17; he worked nights as a telephone operator.

Affiliations & societies

None documented.

Information only — claims like these are often unverifiable and may be wrong.

The pathway

1. 1922 · age 16
   Smyrna burns

   The family fortune is destroyed; they escape to Greece as refugees.

2. 1923 · age 17
   Buenos Aires~$60

   Night shifts at the telephone exchange; days spent building a tobacco-import business.

3. 1929 · age 23
   First million

   Importing Greek tobacco; consular work smooths the trade.

4. 1932 · age 26
   Ships for scrap prices$120K

   Buys six Canadian freighters in the Depression at a fraction of cost.

5. 1948 · age 42
   Supertankers

   Postwar oil transport makes him among the world's richest shipowners.

6. 1957 · age 51
   Olympic Airways

   Takes over Greece's national carrier.

7. 1968 · age 62
   Marries Jacqueline Kennedy

   The wedding on Skorpios makes him a global household name.