John Jacob Astor

Born in Rhinebeck, New York, in 1864, John Jacob Astor IV came from one of America's richest families and became a major figure in New York real estate. He helped develop luxury properties including the Astoria Hotel and was also known for his interest in invention and engineering.

Alongside his business career, he wrote A Journey in Other Worlds (1894), a speculative novel that imagined space travel and future technologies. That makes him a small but interesting part of early science fiction history: a Gilded Age millionaire who used fiction to explore what the next century might look like.

Astor also served in the Spanish-American War and was often in the public eye because of his wealth and social standing. He died in 1912 during the sinking of the RMS Titanic, a tragedy that fixed his name in popular memory, even though his life reached well beyond that single event.