The bible has stories of people living for more than 900 years. In fact, the first human, Adam, in the bible is said to have lived and then died at the age of 930 years old. But if the bible was right, then why haven’t anybody else been able to duplicate this longevity? Because the oldest person who ever lived is Jeanne Louise Calment. She was born in February 1875 and died in 1997 at the age of 122 years old.
Jeanne Louise Calment: The Oldest Person Who Ever Lived
Jeanne Louise Calment, the oldest person who ever lived, was born on 21 February 1875, around 14 years before the Eiffel Tower was constructed (she saw it being built), and some 15 years before movies were discovered. The year after her birth, Tolstoy published Anna Karenina and Alexander Graham Bell discovered the telephone. Jeanne Louise Calment from Arles, France lived a quiet life. But an unprecedentedly long one.
Surprisingly, the oldest person who ever lived was still cycling at 100, she only gave up smoking at 117 and her doctors concluded that she had a mental capacity equivalent to most octogenarians. Enough, at any rate, to coin the odd zinger: “I wait for death… and journalists,” she once told a reporter. Aged 121, she recorded a rap CD, Mistress of Time. But even this “Michael Jordan of ageing”, as one geriatrician put it, had only so much road to run.
She is credited as the oldest person who ever lived because her age was verifiable by use of her official birth certificate. Jeanne lived the longest human life ever documented. She married her second cousin at the age of 21 years old. This is because her and her husband’s grandfather were brothers.
Her marriage to a wealthy distant cousin, Fernand Nicolas Calment, in 1896 meant that Jeanne didn’t have to work for a living. That may have played a part in her extraordinary longevity: she was free to swim, play tennis, cycle (she was still cycling until the age of 100) and roller skate, all of which promoted excellent good health.
What Diet Did Jeanne Louise Clament Eat:
For a human to live long, the diet one eats and lifestyle lived will play a bigger role. Apparently, the world’s oldest person who ever lived smoked until the age of 119 years old. In lieu of a solid breakfast, she would have either coffee with milk, or hot chocolate, and at noon her father would pick her up from school to have lunch at home before she returned to school for the afternoon.
Oldest Person Living
The oldest person living as of February 2022 is Kane Tanaka of Japan. He is 119 years old and also the oldest Japanese ever lived. Kane was born on January 2nd, 1903 in Wajiro Village, in Japan. It is modern day Hagashi-ku, Fukuoka, Japan. Unlike Jeanne Louise Calment, Kane has had a brush with deadly diseases including paratyphoid, colorectal cancer and pancreatic cancer.
On January 3rd, 2022 during Tanaka’s 119th birthday, people from all over the world commended her longevity through the following twitter posts:
119歳おめでとうございます。
— 長寿ファン (@chojuota) January 1, 2022
フィギュアスケートで言う5回転並みの快挙ですね。
去年の誕生日では118歳に達し、4回転アクセル並みの快挙を成し遂げましたから。
今現在では羽生結弦が4回転アクセルに挑戦しており、成功すれば118歳到達並みの快挙になりますから。
Have a sweet birthday Mrs Tanaka ❤
— Byron Murphy (@ByronMurphy8) January 2, 2022
Happy 😊 birthday 🎂 🥳 from the UK 🇬🇧 and Nigeria 🇳🇬
— TheCarpenter (@UcheIhemadu1) January 5, 2022
