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.