In 1834, Commodore Uriah Levy bought Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello for $2,700. In the 1880s, the Harmony Borax Works paid Chinese immigrants $1.30 per day to mine borax in the often-brutal heat of Death Valley, California. In 1961, Ray Kroc strong-armed Mac and Dick McDonald into selling their restaurant chain, later worth billions, for $2.7 million.