Welcome to Daily TWiP, your daily dose of all the holidays and history we couldn’t cram into The Week in Preview.

And you thought your birthday cake had the fire department standing by. Jeanne Louise Calment, the longest living person documented, was born today (Feb. 21st) in 1875, in Arles, France. She died Aug. 4, 1997, at the astonishing age of 122 years and 164 days.

Calment spent the first century or so of her life in relative obscurity. Her husband, Fernand, owned a store, which brought in enough income that she was able to enjoy a life of leisure. She was able to live comfortably without working even after his passing in 1942.

The public’s interest in Calment was piqued in 1988, the centennial of Vincent van Gogh’s visit to her hometown of Arles, France. Calment, it turned out, had met the artist when he stopped by her uncle’s fabric shop to purchase some canvas. Reporters clamored to interview her for the scoop on Van Gogh (she described him as slovenly in appearance and having a disagreeable personality) and soon realized that the bigger story might be Calment herself.

At the time of her discovery by the media, Calment was 113 years old. She had learned the sport of fencing at 85 and continued to ride a bicycle into her early 100s. She had lived independently until the age of 110, moving into a nursing home after problems with her vision resulted in an accidental cooking fire in her apartment. After a fall at the age of 114, Calment used a wheelchair to get around until her death at 122 years old.

In spite of her remarkable longevity, Calment was no poster child for healthy habits. She smoked two cigarettes a day from the age of 21 to 117 and credited her lengthy lifespan to large quantities of olive oil (which she used as both a condiment and a moisturizer) and a steady diet of port and chocolate. Kind of makes you rethink your gym membership and multivitamins, doesn’t it?

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– Teresa Santoski