Aristotle Socrates Onassis (/oʊˈnæsɪs/, US also /-ˈnɑː-/;Greek: Αριστοτέλης Ωνάσης, romanized: Aristotélis Onásis, pronounced [aristoˈtelis oˈnasis]; 20 January 1906 – 15 March 1975), was a Greek shipping magnate who amassed the world’s largest privately-owned shipping fleet and was one of the world’s richest and most famous men He was married to Athina Mary Livanos (daughter of shipping tycoon Stavros G. Livanos), had a long-standing affair with opera singer Maria Callas and was married to Jacqueline Kennedy, the widow of US President John F. Kennedy
Onassis was born in Smyrna (modern-day İzmir in Turkey) and fled the city with his family to Greece in 1922 in the wake of the catastrophe of Smyrna. He moved to Argentina in 1923 and established himself as a tobacco trader and later a shipping owner during the Second World War.
Moving to Monaco, Onassis fought Prince Rainier III for economic control of the country through his ownership of SBM and its Monte Carlo Casino. In the mid-1950s, he sought to secure an oil shipping arrangement with Saudi Arabia and engaged in whaling expeditions. In the 1960s,
Onassis attempted to establish a large investment contract—Project Omega—with the Greek military junta, and he sold Olympic Airways, which he had founded in 1957. Onassis was greatly affected by the death of his 24-year-old son, Alexander, in a plane crash in 1973, and he died two years later.
