Aristotle Onassis

Aristotle Onassis (Αριστοτέλης Ονάσσης; January 15, 1906–March 15, 1975) was the most famous Greek shipping magnate of the 20th century.

Onassis was born in Smyrna (now Izmir), a city in what is now Turkey. At the time of his birth, Smyrna and had significant amounts of Greek population and culture. After being briefly occupied by Greece (from 1919 to 1922), the city was recaptured by Turkey, and the Onassis family holdings were lost, spurring the family to move to Greece as refugees. By 1932, Onassis had become a world-class businessman, owning commercial ships, tankers and whalers. He founded Olympic Airways, the Greek national carrier, in 1957.

He married Athina Mary Livanos, daughter of shipping magnate Stavros Livanos, in 1946; they had a son and daughter, and were divorced in 1960; she then married John George Vanderbilt Spencer-Churchill, Marquess of Blandford, heir to the title Duke of Marlborough, and later still, her late sister's former husband, Stavros Niarchos. For a number of years, Onassis's mistress was the opera singer Maria Callas.

Onassis married, as his second wife, Jackie Kennedy, the widow of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, on October 22, 1968. They spent a great deal of time on his private island Skorpios.

Onassis died in Paris of the effects of myasthenia gravis in 1975. His son Alexander predeceased him (dying in a helicopter crash); his daughter Christina inherited his fortune, which has since passed to her only child, Athina Roussel.