The Staggering Tale of the World's Luckiest Idiot

Prepare to be amazed by the bizarre life of Timothy Dexter, a man whose monumental blunders defied all logic and turned him into an unlikely millionaire.

Since the dawn of humanity, about 117 billion people have been born. If you stacked them up, you could build a tower tall enough to reach the Sun, with enough left over to reach a third of the way back! Most of these people have long been forgotten, but a few left a mark on history. In 2022, a team of scientists compiled a list of "notable humans"—2.29 million of them to be exact. From leaders and inventors to explorers, it was a tribute to the movers and shakers of the world.

But among them is one name you might not expect: Timothy Dexter. His journey to the "notable" tower is one of the strangest tales of luck and idiocy ever told.

Dexter, often regarded as one of the biggest fools in history, was born into poverty in 1747. His early life was, by all accounts, unremarkable. He was forced to drop out of school at age eight and spent years as an indentured servant before becoming a tanner. But it was his later years that would define his legacy as the "king of cluelessness."

Timothy Dexter didn’t just stumble into wealth—he tripped, fell, and accidentally became a millionaire. His first big misstep was buying up worthless Continental dollars—paper money issued during the American Revolution that was rapidly plummeting in value. Most people saw them as trash, but Dexter saw them as an opportunity. He bought millions of dollars' worth, betting on their value plummeting to nearly zero. And then, in a truly unbelievable turn of events, the U.S. government decided to redeem them at a fraction of their original value, making Dexter a fortune.

But it didn’t stop there. His career was a catalogue of absurd, impractical ideas—each of which somehow paid off. He famously sent coal to Newcastle, one of the largest coal-producing cities in the world. And guess what? He made a profit when a coal strike hit, sending prices skyrocketing. Then, in a moment of pure genius (or just dumb luck), he decided to ship tens of thousands of bed warmers to the Caribbean. The locals didn’t want them, but they did need large ladles for molasses production, so Dexter sold them for a 70% profit.

It gets crazier. Dexter’s life was marked by countless other flukes, such as accidentally cornering the whalebone market, selling Bibles at inflated prices, and even shipping stray cats to the Caribbean to combat rat infestations. Somehow, despite the absurdity of his schemes, he kept getting richer.

But wealth didn’t bring Dexter happiness. He craved respect, so he built himself a mansion and filled it with statues of great men, including one of himself—labeled "The Greatest Philosopher in the Western World." He even hired a poet to sing his praises. It was the ultimate ego trip.

And then, Dexter did something truly bonkers: he faked his own death to see if anyone would mourn him. Over 3,000 people attended his "funeral," and Dexter, hiding nearby, was pleased with the turnout—until he saw his wife wasn’t crying. In a fit of rage, he revealed himself and confronted her in front of the mourners.

In his later years, Dexter wrote a memoir—*A Pickle for the Knowing Ones*—that was a rambling mess of incomprehensible rants and nonsensical ideas. But somehow, despite its total lack of structure or sense, the book became a literary sensation, reprinted multiple times and still being discussed more than a century after his death.

Today, Timothy Dexter is remembered as one of history's most unlikely characters. Was he a genius, or just a man who stumbled into luck? His story proves that sometimes, being a "notable human" isn’t about smarts—it’s about the weirdest kind of fortune.

His life is a testament to the idea that you don’t always have to be the sharpest tool in the shed to make your mark on history. In fact, sometimes being a complete idiot is the key to success.