Slavery stretches back as long as human civilization (or perhaps even longer) and stretches forward to the 21st century (the current slave population is somewhere north of 20 million). Runaways, known as “maroons,” have set up fascinating communities known for their unique cultures and dogged military resistance. They’ve also been prone to hardship, and even in modern times, their history has been defined by hostile relations with national governments and a struggle for land rights.

10Cimarrones, Panama

The presence of Cimarrones in the Panamanian isthmus was first recorded in the 1520s, when slaves slipped away from convoys traveling between ports on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. In the 1550s, a ship carrying a Mandinko slave named Bayano was wrecked off the coast, and Bayano was then elected “King of the Blacks.” He spent the next five years harrying the Spaniards by preying on mule convoys carrying gold and silver. The Spanish eventually realized they couldn’t defeat the Cimarrones on their own terrain and instead settled on treachery. At a supposed peace negotiation, they poisoned several of Bayano’s followers. The king himself was exiled to Peru and later Spain.

Shortly thereafter, in 1572, the Cimarrones proved crucial allies in the privateering ventures of Sir Francis Drake. A group of 30 maroons guided Drake’s forces through the jungle, enabling him to ambush multiple mule trains, making off with much booty. The unnerved Spanish consequently launched several expeditions against the Cimarron settlements before coming to an agreement whereby the Cimarrones received a blanket pardon and their own self-governing settlement. In return, they were compelled to send back any future fugitive slaves and couldn’t ally with foreign powers.

9Siddis Of India

While the history of East African slaves in India may go back to 628, they first arrived in large numbers in the 12th century. They were employed mainly in military roles, and in the 15th century, an Abyssinian briefly reigned as a sultan in Bengal. Malik Ambar was later a respected prime minister and mercenary general in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

One particular group of Abyssinian Siddis came into control of Janjira in the 1490s, either seizing it in their own right or being appointed governors by a local ruler. Supposedly, they Trojan-horsed their way in, with their leader disguising himself as a merchant and then smuggling soldiers into the fortress in boxes. They quickly became the chief naval power on the northwest Indian coast, enriching themselves as mercenaries and pirates and through transporting hajj pilgrims.

Over the following two centuries, they operated in a loose alliance with the Mughals and fended off Portuguese, Dutch, English, and Maratha attacks before finally being defeated by the British in 1760 and accepting British suzerainty in the 19th century.

8Black Cherokee

Actually, there are no black Cherokee. This is the opinion of the Cherokee themselves; they implemented a requirement of proven descent from a “Cherokee by blood” to claim citizenship and suffrage in 1983, but this was ruled unconstitutional by the nation’s Supreme Court in 2006. Unperturbed, they simply amended the constitution via a referendum. This amendment was upheld by the Supreme Court and expelled 3,000 freedmen. These are the descendants of the Cherokee slaves integrated into the tribe by law at the conclusion of the American Civil War, and the decision cuts them off from food aid and medical services.

Early in their history the Cherokee were known to accept escaped slaves into their tribe. But contact with the United States (particularly the Southern United States) and the Cherokee’s subsequent assimilation saw them adopt white racial prejudices. The richer Cherokee also employed African slaves and sided with the Confederacy—Cherokee Brigadier-General Stand Watie was among the last Confederate officers to surrender.

The Cherokee Freedmen Controversy, as it has come to be known, is a fascinating issue that blends questions of tribal sovereignty, civil rights, the distribution of federal aid, voter turnout (only 8,700 of 35,000 eligible voters took part in the referendum), and the desire to paint over a slave-owning past. The timing of the decision, just before a narrowly decided election for principal chief, also raises eyebrows.

7Bushinengues, Suriname, And French Guiana

In Suriname, the sugar plantations were overwhelmingly situated on rivers, with slaves easily able to flee into the surrounding forest and swamp. Over time, they organized themselves into tribes who regularly raided plantations in search of weapons, ammunition, women, and food, with such success that most signed treaties with the Dutch by the 1760s.

That decade also saw the rise of the belligerent Boni maroons, who carried out a concerted guerrilla war for 30 years. The Boni ultimately migrated into French Guiana and only signed a treaty with the Europeans in the 1860s, after a century of intermittent warfare. Back in Suriname, the maroon population grew substantially, and the six tribes today make up 10 percent of the country’s population. In doing so, they have often resisted the modernization and resettlement attempts of the central government and military, culminating in a six-year guerrilla war from 1986–1992. More recent years have seen them try to assert their land rights in the face of mining and hydroelectric projects.

6Jamaican Maroons

The Jamaican Maroons have their genesis in the Spanish abandonment of the island in 1655, wherein many slaves fled into the mountainous interior as the British occupied Jamaica. Here, they coalesced into two groups, the Leeward (in the west) and Windward (in the east) tribes.

Over the following several decades, relations with the British remained tense. The British resented the harboring of runaways and undermining of their authority. Regular slave rebellions further destabilized the situation, as did the growth of the Maroon population and consequent demand for land. This boiled over into open conflict in the 1720s, but the Maroons proved skilled in guerrilla warfare, using the terrain to their advantage.

In 1739, they came to a negotiated peace with the British. This stipulated that the Maroons would capture and return runaways and defend Jamaica against foreign invasion. In return, their freedom and land rights were recognized, and they were allowed to govern themselves.

Peace was maintained until 1795. Spooked by the slave revolt in Haiti, the belligerent British governor elected to punish one maroon group, Trelawney Town, for minor infractions. Though no other maroon communities came to their aid, Trelawney’s 300 maroons (and a few hundred runaways) held out against 10-to-1 odds for eight months. When finally defeated by sheer weight of numbers and an intensive fort-building program (plus, the British brought in hunting dogs), some 500 maroons were deported to Nova Scotia. Unused to the climate and farming conditions, they quickly grew restless and were sent to newly established Sierra Leone.

5Fort Mose, Florida

In 1693, King Charles II of Spain (otherwise known for being ridiculously inbred), issued an edict granting freedom to fugitive slaves seeking refuge in St. Augustine, the capital of Spanish Florida. This weakened their English rivals (the runaways came from the Carolinas) and strengthened themselves by marshalling the ex-slaves’ support and military power. The importance of defending sparsely populated Florida is reflected in the preconditions a fugitive had to accept: to protect St. Augustine, swear loyalty to Spain, and convert to Catholicism.

The British grew increasingly incensed, sending agents to demand the return of their property and initiating a series of raids and counter-raids. This occurred especially during Queen Anne’s War (1702–1713), the American theater of the War of the Spanish Succession. When these proved insufficient, Georgia was established to serve as a slave-free buffer state.

In 1738, the increasingly assertive freedmen were given their own autonomous settlement at Fort Mose, the first of its kind. Its population soon numbered 100. The following year, hostilities with England resumed in the War of Jenkin’s Ear, and the English, after suppressing a rebellion of their own slaves, attacked Florida. As a result, the freedmen were forced to withdraw from Fort Mose to play a pivotal role in defending St. Augustine, serving under black officers and receiving pay equal to their Spanish comrades. Fort Mose was then retaken in a devastating surprise attack that forced the British invaders to withdraw.

In the long run, however, the British attained Florida in 1763 at the conclusion of the French and Indian (or Seven Years’) War. The freed black community evacuated to Cuba.

4Palmares, Brazil

Palmares was founded in 1605, allegedly by an Angolan princess who escaped slavery. It came to consist of 10 large settlements and up to 30,000 people. This number is roughly equal to the population of British North America at the same time and was ruled over by a “great lord” or king, governed according to a mishmash of central African customs. By the 1630s, the ruler was Ganga Zumba, and Palmares continued to flourish in the face of Portuguese and Dutch pressure.

An eyewitness to a Dutch expedition in 1645 described the towns of New and Old Palmares as being surrounded by stakes and gates sealed by fallen trees. It had a range of buildings including churches, smithies, and fountains.

The constant strife, however, took its toll on Ganga Zumba. In 1678, he agreed to a treaty with the Portuguese, obliging him to stop accepting fugitive slaves and acknowledge Portuguese suzerainty. This compromise was rejected by Ganga Zumba’s military commander or nephew Zumbi, who chose resistance. Zumba died, possibly of poison, shortly thereafter. Zumbi then managed to fend off six consecutive Portuguese attacks from 1680–1686 before Palmares finally fell in 1694 and was destroyed in its entirety.

Despite the defeat of Palmares, maroon communities known as quilombos remained widespread in Brazil. Some 700 are identified today. Since the 1980s, they’ve been steadily working to attain legal title to their lands.

3Great Dismal Swamp Maroons

The charmingly named Great Dismal Swamp of southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina consisted of 3,200 kilometers (2,000 mi) of tangling vegetation over marshy ground with an array of bears, snakes, and wildcats. Its apparently inhospitable nature meant it was largely left alone by early European settlers and served as a haven for escaped slaves from the late 1600s through to the Civil War. Having established themselves on small patches of higher ground in the swamp’s interior, the maroon population soon grew to anywhere between a few hundred and 2,000.

However, by the latter decades of the 18th century, the tides of economic progress affected even the isolated and foreboding Great Dismal Swamp in the form of roads, timber companies, and a canal. Perhaps surprisingly, the maroons were partially integrated into this wider economy and found work on lumber operations, construction gangs, and as mule-drivers. In doing so, they worked alongside slaves, some of whom stayed in the swamp after purchasing their freedom.

In the Civil War, the two sides competed for control of the Great Dismal Canal, which was eventually secured by the Union with help from black troops. Later campaigns in the area saw the maroons provide provisions and scouts for the Union troops and launched guerrilla campaigns into North Carolina. Following emancipation and the close of the war, the swamp was largely abandoned.

2Miskito Sambu, Nicaragua

In either 1641 or 1652, a Portuguese slave ship sank off the Mosquito Coast in Central America, but a sizeable number made it ashore. Here, they were integrated into the local Miskito, forming their own distinct ethnic sub-group. The Miskito Sambu (or Zambos), and eventually rose to command the tribe and the coast.

They also struck up an enduring connection with England, partly because a Miskito chief had sent his son, Oldman, to visit England during the reign of King Charles. They adopted the institution of monarchy and were ruled over by a series of kings with firmly British names, like Peter, Edward, Robert, George, Andrew, and even a Prince Wellington. The first of these, King Jeremy (first attested in the last decade of the 17th century) was at least part African, and so were his successors.

The affinity with Britain was confirmed by an official treaty of friendship and alliance in 1740 as well as the British establishment of a protectorate over the coast. It was in this guise that the Miskito harried Spanish territory with some success during the American Revolutionary War, but Britain’s ultimate defeat compelled them to withdraw from the protectorate in 1787. Following the independence of Spain’s colonies, both Honduras and Nicaragua asserted loose control over the Miskito, and Nicaragua annexed the place outright in 1894. The Miskito, many of whom are English-speaking and Protestant, have sometimes had troublesome relations with their new governments, and fought against the Sandinista government in the 1980s. In doing so, they teamed up with the Contras, who are famous for receiving illegal funding from Ronald Reagan.

1Black Seminoles

As we have seen, Florida was an attractive destination for many runaway slaves, but not all settled under Spanish authority. Instead, some established their own communities among the Seminole. Here, they lived in their own towns but gave the Seminole an annual tribute and served as translators in negotiations with Europeans.

Eventually, however, tensions with America over runaway slaves resulted in open conflict. Future president Andrew Jackson invaded in the First Seminole War (1817–1818), and Spain ceded Florida to the United States. This also saw a small group of black Seminoles flee the area to settle on Andros Island in the Bahamas, where their community endures to this day. Despite their initial victory, the Americans remained covetous of Seminole land, and their demand that the Seminole move west of the Mississippi River triggered the Second Seminole War (1835–1842). The maroons were a key factor in the dogged resistance encountered by the US Army, stirring up one of the largest slave revolts in US history.

Nevertheless, the Americans emerged victorious (though it cost the lives of 2,000 soldiers and up to $60 million), partly by exacerbating divisions between the black and Indian Seminole. Most were deported to Indian Territory. Dissatisfaction with conditions here led several hundred black Seminoles to take up a Mexican offer to serve as border guards in 1849. Most of these were enticed back in 1870 to serve as Indian Scouts for the US Army, setting up a unit that would last until 1912 and win four Medals of Honor.

However, the US government reneged on a promise to give them land, mainly due to disputes over whether black Seminoles were entitled to Indian land. Some returned to Mexico as squatters, and others re-joined their compatriots in the Indian Territory, which became Oklahoma.

Finally, following the disbandment of the Scouts in 1912, the 200–300 remaining black Seminoles settled in Brackettville, Texas next to the fort they’d been stationed in. Unfortunately, as with the Cherokee, the black Seminoles have subsequently faced questions over their right to claim Seminole citizenship and the benefits it entitles and have been involved in bitter legal disputes.

Tyler Parsons is a socially maladjusted degenerate loafer struggling with the lack of meaning (or even noticeable emotion) in his life. Email him or look him up on Facebook.

History is the study of the past through written documents, which means that most people technically didn’t make it into history at all. Traditional historians weren’t very interested in recording the fate of random peasants. But every so often, these forgotten people would force their way into the history books. Some even defied the aristocrats of the time and founded great empires of their own.

10Ya’qub The Coppersmith

Ya’qub al-Saffar (“the Coppersmith”) was an impoverished metalworker who lived in the city of Zaranj in the mid-ninth century. His brother, a mule driver named ‘Amr, lived close by. For most of their lives, eastern Persia was in a state of turmoil as the Abbasid caliphs vied for control with an extremist sect known as the Kharijites. As things descended into anarchy, local self-defense militias sprang up throughout the province. In Zaranj, Ya’qub and ‘Amr volunteered to join one such group.

Over the next few years, Ya’qub took control of the local forces, defeated the bandits plaguing the area, and expanded his power throughout the region. By 876, the Saffarid Empire spanned throughout modern Iran and Afghanistan. Ya’qub himself seemed certain to conquer Baghdad, overthrowing the mighty Abbasid Caliphate.

But it wasn’t to be. The Coppersmith suffered a narrow defeat just 50 miles from Baghdad. Wounded in the battle, he died three years later and was succeeded by his brother ‘Amr, who was unable to hold the empire together and was executed in a Baghdad marketplace.

9Rabih Az-Zubayr

Rabih Az-Zubayr was born in the Sudan at some point in the mid-19th century. Sold into servitude as a child, he became a slave-soldier for a local Sudanese ruler. When this prince was defeated by the Egyptians, Rabih fled into central Africa with around 400 survivors, who would form the kernel of his empire.

Attacking towns and villages as he went, Rabih built his ragged group of survivors into an army of 5,000 trained soldiers, complete with an artillery brigade. In the 1890s, he attacked the once-mighty Bornu Empire and quickly overran it. With impressive efficiency, he formed a tightly controlled empire east in the African interior east of Lake Chad.

Unfortunately for Rabih, his expanding empire ran up against the equally acquisitive French, and his outdated rifles and cannons were no match for the latest European military hardware. He still won several victories, including exterminating a French expedition at Togbao, but he was ultimately defeated and killed on the banks of the Logone River in 1900, bringing his empire to an end after less than a decade.

8Nader Shah

The last of the great Central Asian conquerors was born into a lowly family of herders in eastern Persia. His should have been a humble life, but Nader Shah was driven by a monomaniacal desire for power. He seems to have spent a short time as a slave early in life, before escaping and becoming a bandit. After his armed band helped defeat a local warlord, Nader came to the attention of Prince Tahmasb, a pretender to the throne.

Tahmasb made Nader his commander, which proved to be the best and worst decision he ever made. Nader was one of the greatest generals in history and quickly won numerous victories. But he was also unwilling to be a mere servant and murdered Tahmasb and claimed the throne himself, creating a mighty empire that stretched from Georgia to northern India.

In 1739, Nader launched his famous invasion of the Mughal Empire. After crushing the massive Mughal army, Nader sacked Delhi, making off with unimaginable treasures, including the famed Koh-i-Noor diamond. So much wealth was extracted from Delhi that Nader was able to cancel all taxes in Persia for three years.

Unfortunately, Nader began to show signs of mental degeneration, including bizarre acts of cruelty. In 1741, he had his oldest son blinded, then immediately claimed to regret it. Alarmed by his instability, a group of his own officers assassinated him in 1747, and his empire quickly fell apart.

7Timur The Lame

Nader’s career was impressive, but not that original—-he was merely following in the footsteps of another great and bloody conqueror: Timur the Lame (often known as Tamerlane in the West). Like Nadir, Timur was born to a humble family and became a petty bandit. Early records of his life say that he was once stealing some sheep when an angry shepherd fired arrows into his leg and arm, leaving him with minor disabilities (these injuries were confirmed by archaeologists who opened his tomb in 1941).

Timur took his group into the service of the Chaghatai Khans, then rose through their service and ultimately usurped the throne. He built a massive army of horsemen who raided and conquered in all directions, creating an army that ruled “from Damascus to Delhi.” He defeated the Golden Horde, razed Baghdad, and briefly destroyed the power of the Ottomans (Sultan Bayezid the Thunderbolt died as a prisoner of Timur).

Timur became known for the brutality of his conquests. He built towers of skulls, enslaved thousands, and wiped out ancient cities. He died of a bad cold in 1405, on his way to invade China, leaving his empire to disintegrate in his wake.

6James Brooke

James Brooke was born the son of a reasonably wealthy British judge, and he might have been expected to live out his life in comfortable obscurity. But James never seemed comfortable in 19th-century British society. When his father died, he used the inheritance to buy an armed schooner and sailed east.

In Singapore, he heard that the Sultan of Brunei was struggling to exert control over the island of Borneo. Brooke at once offered to help out, on the condition that he be made governor of Sarawak, a huge territory along the coast of the island. The Sultan was unenthusiastic, but was reluctant to challenge Brooke, who was falsely implying that he worked for the British government. He agreed, only for Brooke to rapidly assert his independence as the “White Rajah” of Sarawak.

Brooke cemented his new kingdom by forming an alliance with the coastal “Sea Dyaks,” who massacred the inland tribes whenever they stepped out of line. Brooke himself funded his operation as a pirate hunter, claiming the Royal Navy’s £20 reward for each pirate killed. This netted him up to £30,000 per expedition, although cynics noted that the dead “pirates” tended to be local opponents of Brooke.

Brooke consistently tried to present himself as a jolly English adventurer, but his rule was founded on bloodshed, including the massacre of 1,500 Chinese in 1857. The state of Sarawak outlived him, passing through the hands of two more “White Rajahs,” before the British bought it in 1946.

5The Mahdi Of Sudan

Muhammad Ahmad was born on an island in the Nile, not far from Dongola in northern Sudan. His family were humble boat-builders, but he sought a religious education from a young age and became known for intense devotion and arguing with his teachers. In 1881, he called his followers to Aba Island and declared himself the Mahdi, a messianic figure expected to appear before the Day of Judgment in most branches of Islam.

At the time, Sudan was ruled by Egypt, which in turn was effectively a British protectorate. This dual foreign influence was heavily resented, and it was taken as a miracle when the Mahdi’s poorly armed followers defeated an Egyptian attempt to arrest him. His religious movement grew rapidly in strength over the next few years, culminating in the stunning defeat of the British general “Hicks Pasha” in 1883.

In late 1884, the Mahdists launched their famous siege of Khartoum, which was stoutly defended by Charles Gordon, better known as “Chinese Gordon,” an oddball British general who was probably their equal in religious fanaticism. The city fell in 1885, leaving Muhammad Ahmad undisputed ruler of a religious empire stretching across modern Sudan. However, “the Mahdi” fell ill and died six months later. With the heart of their movement gone, his followers were not able to defeat a new Anglo-Egyptian invasion in in 1896.

4Babak Khorramdin

Over 150 years after the Muslim conquest of modern Iran, tensions remained high between the Arab caliphs and their Persian subjects. Many Persians continued to follow the Zoroastrian religion and resented the influence of Arab language and culture. The brewing revolution found a leader in Babak Khorramdin, a zealous follower of the Zoroastrian prophet Mazdak.

Babak began his career as a guerrilla fighter, launching lightning raids to seize isolated mountain fortresses, including his famously impenetrable castle of Ghaleye Babak. As his reputation grew, Persians flocked to his banner and by 819 his forces were capable of fighting pitched battles against the Caliph’s armies. Over the next 16 years, he defeated four Arab armies and gained a reputation as a protector of the poor.

But the might of the Abbasid Caliph was too great, and Babak was ultimately driven from his mountain stronghold and captured. His arms and legs were cut off, and he was allowed to bleed to death. Shortly before his capture, he had famously rejected an offer of amnesty, declaring that it was “better to live a single day as a ruler than 40 years as an abject slave.”

3Mahapadma Nanda

According to the Greek historian Curtius, the mighty ruler Mahapadma started life as the son of “a barber who earned just enough to eat each day. But he had a fine presence and thus gained the queen’s affection. Thanks to her influence, he obtained a position of trust . . . treacherously assassinated the king and, under the pretext of protecting the royal children, usurped the supreme authority.”

Indian sources agree, calling Mahapadma the son of a barber and a prostitute who rose from extremely humble beginnings to become prime minister of a north Indian kingdom, then overthrew the king and established his own dynasty. He was known for slaughtering rival nobles and refusing to follow the aristocratic rules of warfare, to the point that the Puranas dub him “the destroyer of the princely order.” Such ruthless tactics worked well, and by his death in 329 BC, he had expanded his rule to form the most powerful empire India had ever seen.

2The Slave Dynasty Of Delhi

Qutb al-Din Aibak was the founder of the “Slave Dynasty” that ruled northern India in the 13th century. As the name implies, he started life as a slave in Nishapur and was sold to Sultan Muhammad of Ghor. As an adult, he was placed in charge of the royal stables and later became a military commander, where he showed his true talent by conquering Delhi and most of northern India.

After the Sultan was assassinated by unknown assailants, Qutb found himself in the perfect position to seize power, which he duly did. Before he could become sultan, he had to gain his freedom, but his heavily armed soldiers ensured that his new owner was unlikely to refuse. The Mamluk (“Slave”) dynasty he founded would rule the Delhi Sultanate until 1290, when it was replaced by a more aristocratic lineage.

1Temujin

It’s impossible to imagine a worse childhood than that of Temujin, the greatest conqueror the world has ever known. When he was 12, his father was poisoned by his enemies, prompting the tribe to abandon his widow and orphans, leaving them with nothing. His mother, Hoelun, managed to keep the children alive by gathering food along the banks of a river, while the young Temujin hunted rats, marmots, and other small game. At 14, he killed his half-brother after an argument over a small fish.

It only got worse from there. At some point, he was captured by the Tayichiuds and forced to work as a slave. A failed escape attempt resulted in him being placed in a cangue, a stock-like device that left him unable to feed himself. He only survived thanks to the assistance of other slaves, before finally staging a successful escape by hiding in a river overnight.

Even as a young adult, Temujin was merely the head of a small band, barely scraping out an existence on the steppe. It was only when his young wife Borte was kidnapped by the Merkids and Temujin put together an expedition to rescue her that he truly started on the path to becoming the immortal Genghis Khan.

It’s every entrepreneur’s hope that the business endeavors they undertake will be successful. No one likes being a failure and businesspeople especially like to succeed and make money off of their plans. While some entrepreneurs strike a chord with their customer base and get lucky, others seem to have the ability to make lightning strike twice, or even more often, and come up with multiple business ideas. Often these businesses are complementary and make sense but sometimes an entrepreneur will come up with businesses that are remarkably dissimilar such that you’d never guess the same person was behind each one.

10. The Founder of Atari Also Founded Chuck E. Cheese

Nolan Bushnell is clearly a guy who likes fun which seems to be the only common thread linking his two greatest business achievements. In 1972, Bushnell co-founded what can be considered the grandfather of the modern gaming world – Atari. Long before anyone had a PlayStation, an Xbox or even a Nintendo in their homes, they had the Atari 2600 and were playing extremely simple games like Asteroids and Pong. 

While introducing the concept of home console gaming seems like it should have been enough to keep anyone set for the rest of their lives, that was a long time ago and the industry was a lot different. So Bushnell had to keep working and his next big idea was something of a left turn. He was also the force behind Chuck E. Cheese which he developed at Atari.

Corporate overlords being what they are, the money men were not amused that Bushnell was making singing robots and otherwise wasting time and resources. He was actually kicked out of the company in 1978. Though he never made as big a splash again with his later work, his contributions to pop culture are certainly legendary and just a bit weird. 

9. Lee Byung-chul Founded Samsung But Started Out Running a Dry Goods Company

Samsung’s 2021 revenue was around $244 billion USD. They’re clearly one of the biggest electronics companies in the world and they make everything from phones to washing machines. This diverse approach is ingrained in the company as their origins are even more wide reaching thanks to the founder, Lee Byung-chul, and his dedication to selling pretty much anything. 

That multi-billion dollar empire started with $25 back in 1938 when the future founder opened a dry goods store to sell things like dried fish and other food. The company sold goods from in and around the city of Taegu and had about 40 employees.Because they sold dried food; the company did well during the Korean War in 1950 and branched out. They moved into sugar and then textiles. That worked too, so they expanded into insurance, retail and by the 1960s they were manufacturing electronics. They’d go on to manufacture ships, telecommunications, and pretty much anything else you can think of. 

The family still runs Samsung today, and the company is obviously most well known for its cell phones and electronics, but the company likely wouldn’t exist at all without dried fish and noodles nearly a century in the past.

8. The Founder of Domino’s Also Founded a Law School

We already saw the founder of Chuck E. Cheese was behind Atari and it turns out pizza guys just have a lot of diverse interests. Tom Monaghan, the man behind Domino’s, also started his own law school. He invested $50 million of his own cash in the school back in the late 1990s. The school’s mission? To educate lawyers with a Roman Catholic perspective. 

Monaghan actually divested himself of the pizza chain to devote himself to Catholic causes. He sold Domino’s for $1 billion, so he certainly had the resources to follow his dreams. And the school really was built and still exists today. It’s been sanctioned in the past for having low entrance standards and is considered one of the most conservative law schools in the country.

7. The Inventor of the Lava Lamp Founded a Nudist Resort

Did you ever have a lava lamp growing up? Or, you know, right now? They are very symbolic in most people’s minds of hippie counterculture and the 60s and 70s, though they enjoyed a retro resurgence once or twice since those times. 

Lava lamps were invented in 1963 by a British accountant named Edward Craven Walker. Walker was known for only one other thing in his life and that was his penchant for nudity. The man made underwater nude films.

Prior to inventing the lamp, Walker had made movies with names like “Eve on Skis” which featured naked people doing things naked. One movie was presented as an underwater ballet. Water and nudity really seemed to move him, so much so that after achieving some success with his movies he bought an entire club and founded his own nudist resort. He then tried to ban anyone from showing up if they were overweight. He was quoted as saying he was again “fat fogies” and they were not what naturism was about.

6. The Co-Founder of Paul Mitchell Also Founded Patron Tequila

Paul Mitchell, more correctly known as John Paul Mitchell Systems, is a hair care company dating back to 1980 with an annual revenue of about $1 billion. It’s safe to say Paul Mitchell is doing alright. 

The company was founded by two men – Paul Mitchell himself, and John Paul DeJoria. Mitchell passed away from cancer back in 1989 and Dejoria continued to run the company from then on but he also managed to diversify his portfolio. In addition to the world of hairspray and brushes, Dejoria is also the man behind Patron Tequila, the third best-selling tequila brand in America. That works out to over 3 million cases sold in 2021 alone. Of course, Dejoria doesn’t need to worry about that anymore since he sold the company in 2018 for over $5 billion. 

5. Avi Arad Invented the Skip It and Later was Behind Marvel Studios

Before Kevin Feige was the Man Behind the Curtain at Marvel creating the MCU and more or less printing money for the Walt Disney Corporation, there was another man who put Marvel up on the big screen and that was Avi Arad. He was the producer behind most of those non-MCU films from the ’90s and early 2000s like the X-Men, Blade, Daredevil, Punisher and so on. 

Before Arad was giving us the joy of Nic Cage as Ghost Rider, he worked in toys. Specifically, he worked for a company called Tiger Toys and was the inventor of one of the most popular toys in history, the Skip It. That was a little hoop you hooker around your ankle attached to a ball on a string that would spin around your ankle, forcing you to skip it, hence the name, with your other foot. Arad, along with two others, filed a patent for their version of it in 1990. It was hugely successful and so was Arad. For a time the man was considered basically the biggest toy designer in America. And some of his biggest toys were based on comic books. 

He was already executive producer of cartoons like the X-Men and stated his goal was to “exploit” the Marvel universe characters in toys, shows and films. And that’s how he ended up kicking off the world of Marvel movies. Arguably the MCU would not exist today without Arad and the Skip It. 

4. The Founder of Wikipedia Ran a Porn Site First

Wikipedia is so ubiquitous on the internet these days it’s essentially just what everyone thinks of when they need to know literally anything they don’t already know. It’s one of the top ten most visited sites on the internet and has been for ages. Just a random sampling shows that, in November 2021 alone, the site traffic reached 5.97 billion, making it the fourth most visited site online after Google, YouTube and Facebook.

Despite not generally being accepted as a “real” source for info, it’s a great starting point if nothing else and, according to Wikipedia itself, it has published over 57 million pages of information. 

The site was founded by Jimmy Wales back in 2001. But before that he had started a site known as Bomis which featured things like the “Bomis Babe Report” which featured galleries of half naked women, the Babe Engine which was a search engine for sexy women and, of course, Bomis Premium which was $2.95 per month and gave you access to X-rated content.

It was the money that Wales made from Bomis that allowed him to start Wikipedia and, in fact, Wikipedia was borrowing bandwidth from Bomis in its early years to stay active. He used money made from Bomis to pay to keep the servers online. So while Wikipedia may be a hub of knowledge today, it’s built on a foundation of soft core porn with a dash of hardcore on the side. 

3. The Founder of Toho Also Founded a Railway

Long before Godzilla was a multi-million dollar blockbuster franchise in America it was a multi-million dollar blockbuster franchise in Japan, but with less savvy special effects. Everyone knows the classic man-in-a-suit Godzilla and the Toho company still makes Godzilla movies the same way. 

Toho was founded by Ichizo Kobayashi in 1932 as the Tokyo Takarazuka Theater Co. Kobayashi was a man who dabbled in just about everything and, years before his company would create everyone’s favorite radioactive lizard, he was doing things like starting railroad companies and department stores. 

It was the railroad that inadvertently led to Godzilla, as Kobayashi wanted more customers on his trains so he devised a theater troupe to entertain people. The train theater evolved to normal theater and then later that turned into film. Later his company would not just create Godzilla but Akira Kurosawa’s legendary The Seven Samurai as well. 

2. Donald Duncan Made a Fortune in Yo-Yos and Parking Meters

Donald Duncan counts as a serious threat to the wallet because this man was all over the map with his business dealings and had success on multiple, disparate fronts. While he was once a franchise owner of a Good Humor Ice Cream, it’s not true that he invented the Eskimo Pie as some sources claim. That aside, he did make a name in yo-yos and parking meters. 

In 1946, Duncan Yo-Yos was making 3,600 yo-yos per hour. They sold 45 million in 1962. And when Duncan wasn’t keeping kids busy with a simple hobby, he was annoying their parents with parking fees. The Duncan Parking Meter Company was an idea he came up with years earlier and he managed to convince cities it would be a good way to make money. Though he sold the company in 1959, when he was still in charge, 80% of all parking meters in America were made by Duncan. 

1. Gavin McInnes Founded Vice Media and the Proud Boys

If you don’t know the name Gavin McInnes, that’s alright. His name tends to pop up most often in media circles in terms of his relationship with the media as he’s best known for being on both sides of that world.

McInnes founded Vice magazine in 1994, which grew into Vice Media, which is still very much a media company on the internet. The magazine was a sort of counterculture Canadian news magazine that was very much focused on the punk scene, or at least it filtered news through a sort of punk perspective. Vice Media is maybe best known in the mainstream for its documentary-style videos that were aired on HBO and covered a variety of topics. 

In more recent years, Vice Media has had to go on record to state they are no longer affiliated with McInnes because his other claim to fame is that he founded the Proud Boys. The Proud Boys are described as a neofascist white nationalist organization by Encyclopedia Britannica, and an extremist group with a violent agenda by the Anti-Defamation League.