Jeanne Louise Calment is the oldest documented person in history, reaching the age of 122 years and 164 days. Calment exceeds by three years and 77 days the second oldest person ever known, Sarah Knauss.
She was born in Arles (France) on February 21, 1875 and died in the same place on August 4, 1997. Her father was a boat builder and her mother was part of a millers family. If we sum up all the days she lived, it would be a total of 44,724 days. In fact, she survived to her own daughter and grandson. But, curiously, one of his close relatives also reached an advanced age. Her older brother, François, lived to the age of 97. Her father came up to a week before 100 years old and her mother until she was 86. They believe Jeanne had a total of 3 brothers: François, Antoine who died when he was 4 and Marie who died being only 1 year old.
When he was 21, in 1896, she married her second cousin, Fernand Nicolas Calment. Due to his outstanding economic position, Jeanne never had to work, so she lived a leisure life practicing hobbies like tennis, swimming, piano and opera. Her husband died in 1943 when he was 73-74 years old. Jeanne only had one daughter, Yvonne, who was born in 1898 and who died when she only was 35 from pneumonia. Consequently, Jeanne took care of her grandson Frédéric. Frédéric became a doctor but died prematurely in 1960 in a car accident.
In 1985, when she was 110 years old, Jeanne caused a small fire at her own apartment because of her poor eyesight, which led her to make the decision to move to a nursing home. Jeanne became famous in 1988 in the commemoration of the centenary of Vincent van Gogh, whom she met when she was 13 years old in the workshop of her uncle. In addition, in 1990, she was part of the "Vincent and Me" film, becoming the oldest person that has come on screens.
At the age of 85, Jeanne practiced fencing and even rode a bike until she was 100 years old. Until she was 120 years old, she was able to walk by herself until she fractured her femur. In 1997, she weighed 45kg when she fell ill with flu. Surprisingly, Jeanne smoked up to 117 years, which she started to do so when she was 21 (in 1896). Calment says she was able to live so long thanks to her youthful appearance and olive oil, which poured in all her food and which she used to rub her skin with. In addition, she also ate about 1kg of chocolate per week.
Jeanne died on August 4, 1997 due to natural causes. Since then, several people claim to have overcome her age, but none of them has been proven. The most famous case is that of Shirali Muslimov, who says he was born in 1800 and died in 1963, meaning they would have lived 163 years and 167 days. Since his dates of birth and death cannot be proven, Jeanne continues holding the title of being the oldest person ever.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment
http://wowzone.com/calment.htm
http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~wang/calment.html
http://www.evi.com/q/facts_about__jeanne_calment
http://parksfacts.blogspot.com.es/2012/02/jeanne-louise-calment.html
