She Lived 122 Years But Some Say She Was Younger

It’s 1875. There are 38 states in the US. Queen Victoria rules the UK. The Eiffel Tower won’t be built for another 12 years. The Empire State Building – not for another 50! The average life expectancy for a 19th-century female is about 45 years. One woman, born this year, will nearly triple that. Her name is Jeanne Louise Calment… She was born in Arles, France, right at the beginning of the global industrial boom. She was a year old when the telephone was invented.

The phonograph followed 2 years later. Then the automobile, radio, TV, the computer, and the Internet over the decades. By the time Microsoft was founded, Calment was already 100. When the first smartphone was invented, she was 117. She knew a world without airplanes and spaceships! But many people noted that Jeanne was always full of energy. She looked and acted 20 or even 30 years younger than her age. So was Jeanne Calment really the oldest person who ever lived? If so, what were her secrets to long life?