If we could all live to be over a hundred years old, many of us would choose to do so. Some of the oldest people in the world, however, will live an entire childhood and adolescence past that magical number.

Imagine the stories that the oldest person in the world could tell you, they would span decades upon decades. Stories that are nowadays relegated to textbooks and museums, stories that would otherwise be forgotten if not for their continued existence. What's the trick to such a long life, and who are the luckiest among us?

The world record holder for oldest person to ever live was a truly extraordinary individual, as is the world's oldest person alive today. Who are they, and what can we learn from their remarkable lives?

The oldest person to ever live (at least in recorded in history) was Jeanne Louise Calment, a French woman who was born on the 21st of February 1875. Over her many years on this planet, she witnessed the automobile become a mainstay of modern life, Star Wars become a global sensation, saw Super Mario Bros. arrive on the NES, and Nirvana rise and fall in the early '90s.

As you'd expect, Calment's remarkably long life was plagued with ups and downs, and had its fair share of tragedy. Her husband, Fernand Nicolas Calment, died of alleged cherry poisoning in 1942, during the German occupation of France. Her daughter Yvonne Marie Nicolle Calment died even earlier, in 1934, when she was only 36.

One of the most extraordinary things about Jeanne Calment's life is that she lived on her own until she was 110, only a year before she became the at-the-time oldest living person. During the period and, indeed, around the time of her death, she became a media sensation due to her extraordinary and fascinating life.

Calment never worked, as she was born into a wealthy French family, and had many servants in her day. She passed away while living in a nursing home, in 1997.

At the time of her death in 1997, Jeanne Louise Calment had lived for 122 years and 164 days, making her the oldest person ever in recorded history. She had been 28 when the Wright brothers invented the first airplane, she had been in her late 30s and early 40s during World War 1, and had witnessed the rise and fall of the Third Reich and the Soviet Union.

She turned 100 the year Bob Dylan released Blood on the Tracks, giving her a whole 22 more years to enjoy that masterpiece, and while there is a reasonable amount of skepticism concerning the authenticity of her age, little evidence suggests that there's anything fishy going on.

The oldest person alive today, in 2023, is a US-born Spanish woman named Maria Branyas Morera, who is 116 years old. Having discovered that she was the oldest person in the world after the death of French nun Sister André earlier this year (who was 118), Morera suddenly become a world sensation.

She was awarded a Guinness World Record and even took interviews, though has since reached out on Twitter to ask that she be left alone. In a 2019 interview, she attributed her remarkable life and age to "Luck and good genetics."

Having been born in 1907, Maria Branyas Morera is not only the oldest person alive today, but someone who has lived through more major historical events than any other. She was born before the Titanic was even built, lived through two world wars, saw more presidents come and go than you could shake a stick at, and witnessed more technological revolutions than you could possibly imagine.

Extraordinarily, this 117-year-old woman is an avid Tweeter, with a bio that reads (albeit in Catalan) "I am old, very old, but not an idiot." That proves it: the oldest person alive today is, without a doubt, an absolute legend!