Aristotle Onassis was a Greek shipping tycoon born in Smyrna, Ottoman Empire, now modern-day Turkey. He was the second husband of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, making him a world-wide figure.
Onassis was the son of Socrates Onassis, a ship owner with a modest fleet of 10 ships and 40 sailors. His father's relative wealth allowed him to receive a good education, and he became fluent in English, Spanish, and Turkish. After World War One, the Ottoman Empire was broken up, and many ethnic Greeks were expelled from Turkey. The Onassis family fled to Greece as refugees.
In 1923, Aristotle Onassis emigrated to Argentina with just $60, approximately $800 in 2011 dollars, adjusted for inflation. He began as an importer of Turkish tobacco and eventually became a ship owner. He held dual citizenship of Argentina and Greece, with passports from both countries.
Onassis shifted his focus to transporting oil for major petroleum companies, who could save money by not owning their own fleets. The introduction of supertankers to transport Middle Eastern oil made him one of the richest men in the world. A supertanker's six-month lease could pay for the majority of its 20-year lifespan, resulting in extraordinary profits.
Onassis invested his vast fortune wisely, including in the petroleum industry, transportation, and other businesses. Outside of business, he was little known, and if known at all, it was for his romance with opera singer Maria Callas. However, his 1968 marriage to Jacqueline Kennedy made him a world-wide figure, with his life chronicled in newspapers around the globe.
