Ronald Perelman. Sadly, he’s only worth 9.5 billion as he lost a bunch of money on Revlon.
DQ: Are you South American?
Nope.
SUMMARY:
Real person
Male
Dead
Born before 1900
Alive after 1945
From the Southern Hemisphere
Involved in science
Self employed
Known for an invention/innovation
Not American
Not European
Not Asian
Not Australian
Not from South America
Not from the Western Hemisphere
Not involved in arts, politics or the military
Never won any major awards
Whoops, I think South America is in the Western Hemisphere. Sorry about the wasted question.
Were you dumped by Lucille?
Not Richard Penniman (aka Little Richard)
Was your thunder stolen by those bastard Wright brothers merely because your brilliance was diminished by living on a remote island where nobody ever heard of a movie camera until Peter Jackson came around?
YES! AT LAST! I AM RICHARD PEARSE,
the pride of New Zealand and (I’m too modest to say this, but my countrymen are not) the true inventor of the airplane!
:golf clap:
Well done…I’m always amazed when someone figures it out.
FTR, the pitcher was Robert Person. He did it in 2002.
Congrats to Darryl Lict! For once, I think I was only a guess or two away from the correct answer myself…
And as an American and an Ohioan, may I say, the Wright Brothers’ place in history is still eternally secure. 
As an American, I agree. Wilbur Wright was a genuine genius, and he deserves all the credit he’s gotten.
He just wasn’t the ONLY genius of his time working on the problem. Brazilians still proudly claim Albert Dumont-Santos as the “real” inventor of the airplane and New Zealanders are still proud to make similar claims for Richard Pearse.
Sadly, one only one man or team tends to get into the history books.
I have no wish to denigrate the Wrights- just to give some love to their competitors, who were brilliant guys in their own rights.
Santos-Dumont!! Dang, I flipped the names again.
Sorry, Brazil!
Heh, thank you, thank you. Yes, I have been to New Zealand which is one of the greatest places on the planet. Frankly, I’m unsure of the evidence, but I’ve never met a Kiwi who was not convinced that Pearce was the true inventor of the aeroplane. I seem to recall that New Zealand didn’t have good electronic communications until well after most of the the Commonwealth due to the fact that it is way the fuck away from anywhere. This tended to slow down the speed of news.
When I was there, they did have an invention which was a tethered airplane zipping around a pole at some ridiculous rate of speed. I love you guys!
I’m a bit busy, and I’ll work on a name, but if anyone else feels compelled to start a new round, be my guest.
I was rather proud of this one. It was Richard Plantagenet the First - better known as Richard the Lionheart, King of England - who invaded Tripoli in 1191 in the Third Crusade.