Shot in the Dark

Three Centuries

This is the sort of statistical oddity that I obsess over.

In the entire world – eight billion people – there is one person alive known to have been born in the 19th century.  And she turns 117 today:

Born November 29, 1899, [Emma Morano] is the world’s oldest living person and the secret to her longevity appears to lie in eschewing usual medical wisdom.

“I eat two eggs a day, and that’s it. And cookies. But I do not eat much because I have no teeth,” she told AFP in an interview last month in her room in Verbania, a town in northern Italy on Lake Maggiore.

Apropos not much.

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Mitch Berg

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3 responses to “Three Centuries”

  1. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    Eggs will kill you, I tell you. Seriously, what a blessed woman to have people coming in often to greet her so warmly. Happy Birthday, Emma!

  2. MtkaMoose Avatar
    MtkaMoose

    I didn’t have to look far into the Yahoo comments to find the words I was looking for…

    deejay7619 hours ago
    “…the last known person alive who was born in the 19th century.” This means that no one born in the year 1900 is alive? Because 1900 was the last year of the nineteenth century. The twentieth century did not begin until Jan. 1, 1901.

    “Geekery”

  3. Chuck Avatar
    Chuck

    So a 10 year old should visit her and have a nice conversation. Then when he(she) is 90 he can say he talked to/knew a person who was born in the 19th century. That would be the equivalent of a 90 year old today talking about a conversation he had with someone born in 1819.
    Perhaps the person the theoretical 90 year old talked to, met Thomas Jefferson.

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