He spent so freely on a single journey that he reportedly disrupted the economy of a major world power, then ran out of cash on the way home and had to take out high-interest loans just to get back. This is the real story of Mansa Musa.

This episode separates historical fact from viral exaggeration about the 14th-century ruler of the Mali Empire. We explore the gold-rich kingdom he inherited under murky circumstances, the legendary pilgrimage that put West Africa on the global map, the disastrous return journey, and the surprising gap between how outsiders and his own people remembered him.

• The vast gold trade and indigenous glass-flux refining technology behind Mali’s wealth
• The suspicious Atlantic-voyage story that may have masked how Musa took the throne
• What the Cairo spending spree really did to gold prices, and why historians treat the numbers as a literary device
• The catastrophic journey home that left the richest man broke and borrowing
• Why his own oral historians criticized him and why ranking him richest of all time is unsound