Rhodes

Cecil Rhodes conquered an area the size of England, Germany, France, and the Low Countries combined, adding a million square miles to Britain's African Empire and lending his name to a new country - Rhodesia. By age thirty-four, Rhodes had founded the DeBeers Company, achieving a worldwide monopoly on diamond production. He went on to earn a second fortune in gold, becoming the richest man in the western world before he was forty. A stalwart patriot and racist, Rhodes laid the foundations of modern apartheid and drew Britain into the bloody Boer War. He mercilessly pinned Africa under his…