New Delhi, April 9 -- John D. Rockefeller was born in Richford, New York, in 1839, moved with his family to Cleveland in 1853, and began his first business in 1859 as a commission merchant dealing in produce and other goods. Seeing the commercial potential of Pennsylvania oil, he built his first refinery near Cleveland in 1863 and, in 1870, co-founded Standard Oil, which grew into the dominant force in the U.S. oil industry and the first great American trust. Later in life, he shifted his attention increasingly toward philanthropy, helping found the University of Chicago and major institutions such as the Rockefeller Institute, the General Education Board, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

This line is widely circulated under Rockefeller's...