A. P. Giannini

At six, he witnessed his father's murder. At 12, he regularly sneaked out to the waterfront at midnight. At 15, he quit school. At 30, he retired, a self-made man. Then the real work of his life began. In 1904, A. P. Giannini (1870-1949) founded Bank of Italy, the predecessor of today's Bank of America, to serve his ethnic neighborhood in San Francisco. Against a backdrop of earthquake and fire, anti-immigrant fervor, war, and the Great Depression, he broke every rule and tradition on his way to a showdown with Wall Street. This riveting story of an outsider with something to prove is an American classic.