Name	Karl Benz|image Carl-Benz coloriert.jpg
Nationality	German
Birth date	November 25, 1844
Birth place	Mühlburg (Karlsruhe)
Death date	April 04, 1929
Death place	Ladenburg
Education	University of Karlsruhe
Spouse	Bertha Ringer
Ethnicity	German
Parents	Johann George Benz (father), Josephine Vaillant (mother)
Children	5, Eugen, Richard, Clara, Ellen, Thilde
Significant projects	founded Mercedes-Benz
Significant design	Benz Patent Motorwagen
Significant advance	gasoline-powered automobile
Alt	}}

(November 25, 1844 – April 4, 1929) was a German engine designer and car engineer, generally regarded as the inventor of the gasoline-powered automobile, and together with Bertha Benz pioneering founder of the automobile manufacturer Mercedes-Benz. Other German contemporaries, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach working as partners, also worked on similar types of inventions, without knowledge of the work of the other, but Benz patented his work first, and, subsequently patented all the processes that made the internal combustion engine feasible for use in an automobile. In 1879 his first engine patent was granted to him and in 1886 Benz was granted a patent for his first automobile.

Early life

Karl Benz was born Karl Friedrich Michael Vaillant, in Karlsruhe, Baden, which is part of modern Germany, to Josephine Vaillant and a locomotive driver, Johann George Benz, whom she married a few months later. When he was two years old, his father was killed in a railway accident, and his name was changed to Karl Friedrich Benz in remembrance of his father.

Despite living in near poverty, his mother strove to give him a good education. Benz attended the local Grammar School in Karlsruhe and was a prodigious student. In 1853, at the age of nine he started at the scientifically oriented Lyceum. Next he studied at the Poly-Technical University under the instruction of Ferdinand Redtenbacher.

Benz had originally focused his studies on locksmithing, but eventually followed his father's steps toward locomotive engineering. On September 30, 1860, at age fifteen, he passed the entrance exam for mechanical engineering at the University of Karlsruhe, which he subsequently attended. Benz was graduated July 9, 1864 at nineteen.

During these years, while riding his bicycle, he started to envision concepts for a vehicle that would eventually become the ''horseless carriage''.

Following his formal education, Benz had seven years of professional training in several companies, but did not fit well in any of them. The training started in Karlsruhe with two years of varied jobs in a mechanical engineering company.

He then moved to Mannheim to work as a draftsman and designer in a scales factory. In 1868 he went to Pforzheim to work for a bridge building company ''Gebrüder Benckiser Eisenwerke und Maschinenfabrik''. Finally, he went to Vienna for a short period to work at an iron construction company.

Benz's first factory and early inventions (1871–1882)

In 1871, at the age of twenty-seven, Karl Benz joined August Ritter in launching the Iron Foundry and Mechanical Workshop in Mannheim, later renamed Factory for Machines for Sheet-metal Working.

The enterprise's first year went very badly. Ritter turned out to be unreliable, and the business's tools were impounded. The difficulty was overcome when Benz's fiancée, Bertha Ringer, bought out Ritter's share in the company using her dowry.

On July 20, 1872 Karl Benz and Bertha Ringer married. They had five children: Eugen (1873), Richard (1874), Clara (1877), Thilde (1882), and Ellen (1890).

Despite such business misfortunes, Karl Benz led in the development of new engines in the early factory he and his wife owned. To get more revenues, in 1878 he began to work on new patents. First, he concentrated all his efforts on creating a reliable gas two-stroke engine. Benz finished his two-stroke engine on December 31, 1878, New Year's Eve, and was granted a patent for it in 1879.

Karl Benz showed his real genius, however, through his successive inventions registered while designing what would become the production standard for his two-stroke engine. Benz soon patented the speed regulation system, the ignition using white power sparks with battery, the spark plug, the carburetor, the clutch, the gear shift, and the water radiator.

Benz's Gasmotoren-Fabrik Mannheim (1882–1883)

Problems arose again when the banks at Mannheim demanded that Bertha and Karl Benz's enterprise be incorporated due to the high production costs it maintained. The Benzes were forced to improvise an association with photographer Emil Bühler and his brother (a cheese merchant), in order to get additional bank support. The company became the joint-stock company ''Gasmotoren Fabrik Mannheim'' in 1882.

After all the necessary incorporation agreements, Benz was unhappy because he was left with merely five percent of the shares and a modest position as director. Worst of all, his ideas weren't considered when designing new products, so he withdrew from that corporation just one year later, in 1883.

Benz & Cie. and the Motorwagen

+ 1885 Benz Patent Motorwagen
Three wheels
Tubular steel frame
Rack and pinion steering, connected to a driver end tiller; wheel chained to front axle
Electric ignition
Differential rear end gears	(mechanically operated inlet valves)
Water-cooled internal combustion engine
Gas or petrol four-stroke horizontally mounted engine
Single cylinder, Bore 116 mm, Stroke 160 mm
Patent model: 958 cc, 0.8 hp, 600 W, 16 km/h
Commercialized model: 1600 cc, ¾ hp,

Benz's lifelong hobby brought him to a bicycle repair shop in Mannheim owned by Max Rose and Friedrich Wilhelm Eßlinger. In 1883, the three founded a new company producing industrial machines: ''Benz & Company Rheinische Gasmotoren-Fabrik'', usually referred to as, ''Benz & Cie.'' Quickly growing to twenty-five employees, it soon began to produce static gas engines as well.

The success of the company gave Benz the opportunity to indulge in his old passion of designing a ''horseless carriage''. Based on his experience with, and fondness for, bicycles, he used similar technology when he created an automobile. It featured wire wheels (unlike carriages' wooden ones) with a four-stroke engine of his own design between the rear wheels, with a very advanced coil ignition and evaporative cooling rather than a radiator. Power was transmitted by means of two roller chains to the rear axle. Karl Benz finished his creation in 1885 and named it the Benz Patent Motorwagen.

It was the first automobile entirely designed as such to generate its own power, not simply a motorized-stage coach or horse carriage, which is why Karl Benz was granted his patent and is regarded as its inventor.

The Motorwagen was patented on January 29, 1886 as DRP-37435: "automobile fueled by gas". The 1885 version was difficult to control, leading to a collision with a wall during a public demonstration. The first successful tests on public roads were carried out in the early summer of 1886. The next year Benz created the Motorwagen Model 2, which had several modifications, and in 1887, the definitive Model 3 with wooden wheels was introduced, showing at the Paris Expo the same year.

Benz began to sell the vehicle (advertising it as the Benz Patent Motorwagen) in the late summer of 1888, making it the first commercially available automobile in history. The second customer of the Motorwagen was a Parisian bicycle manufacturer Emile Roger who had already been building Benz engines under license from Karl Benz for several years. Roger added the Benz automobiles (many built in France) to the line he carried in Paris and initially most were sold there. Early customers could only buy gasoline from pharmacies that sold small quantities as a cleaning product. The early 1888 version of the Motorwagen had no gears and could not climb hills unaided. This limitation was rectified after Bertha Benz made her famous trip driving one of the vehicles a great distance and suggested to her husband the addition of another gear.

An important part in the Benz story is this first long distance automobile trip, where entrepreneurial Bertha Benz, supposedly without the knowledge of her husband, on the morning of August 5, 1888, took this vehicle on a trip from Mannheim to Pforzheim to visit her mother, taking her sons Eugen and Richard with her. In addition to having to locate pharmacies on the way to fuel up, she repaired various technical and mechanical problems and invented brake lining. After some longer downhill slopes she ordered a shoemaker to nail leather on the brake blocks. Bertha Benz and sons finally arrived at nightfall, announcing the achievement to Karl by telegram. It had been her intention to demonstrate the feasibility of using the Benz Motorwagen for travel and to generate publicity in the manner now referred to as live marketing. Today the event is celebrated every two years in Germany with an antique automobile rally. In 2008 Bertha Benz Memorial Route was officially approved as a route of industrial heritage of mankind, because it follows Bertha Benz's tracks of the world's first long-distance journey by automobile in 1888. Now everybody can follow the 194 km of signposted route from Mannheim via Heidelberg to Pforzheim (Black Forest) and back.

Benz's Model 3 made its wide-scale debut to the world in the 1889 World's Fair in Paris; about twenty-five Motorwagens were built between 1886 and 1893.

Benz & Cie. expansion

The great demand for stationary, static internal combustion engines forced Karl Benz to enlarge the factory in Mannheim, and in 1886 a new building located on Waldhofstrasse (operating until 1908) was added. ''Benz & Cie.'' had grown in the interim from 50 employees in 1889 to 430 in 1899.

During the last years of the nineteenth century, ''Benz'' was the largest automobile company in the world with 572 units produced in 1899.

Because of its size, in 1899, ''Benz & Cie.'' became a joint-stock company with the arrival of Friedrich von Fischer and Julius Ganß, who came aboard as members of the Board of Management. Ganß worked in the commercialization department, which is somewhat similar to marketing in contemporary corporations.

The new directors recommended that Benz should create a less expensive automobile suitable for mass production. In 1893, Karl Benz created the ''Victoria'', a two-passenger automobile with a engine, which could reach the top speed of and had a pivotal front axle operated by a roller-chained tiller for steering. The model was successful with 85 units sold in 1893.

The Benz ''Velo'' also participated in the first automobile race, the 1894 ''Paris to Rouen Rally''.

In 1895, Benz designed the first truck in history, with some of the units later modified by the first motor bus company: the ''Netphener'', becoming the first motor buses in history.

In 1896, Karl Benz was granted a patent for his design of the first flat engine. It had horizontally opposed pistons, a design in which the corresponding pistons reach top dead centre simultaneously, thus balancing each other with respect to momentum. Flat engines with four or fewer cylinders are most commonly called boxer engines, ''boxermotor'' in German, and also are known as ''horizontally opposed engines''. This design is still used by Porsche, Subaru, and some high performance engines used in racing cars. In motorcycles, the most famous boxer engine is found in BMW motorcycles, though the boxer engine design was used in many other models, including Zundapp, Wooler, Douglas Dragonfly, Ratier, Universal, IMZ-Ural, Dnepr, Gnome et Rhône, Chang Jiang, Marusho, and the Honda Gold Wing.

Although Gottlieb Daimler died in March 1900—and there is no evidence that Benz and Daimler knew each other nor that they knew about each other's early achievements—eventually, competition with Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (DMG) in Stuttgart began to challenge the leadership of Benz & Cie. In October 1900 the main designer of DMG, Wilhelm Maybach, built the engine that would be used later, in the ''Mercedes-35hp'' of 1902. The engine was built to the specifications of Emil Jellinek under a contract for him to purchase thirty-six vehicles with the engine and for him to become a dealer of the special series. Jellinek stipulated the new engine be named Daimler-''Mercedes'' (for his daughter). Maybach would quit DMG in 1907, but he designed the model and all of the important changes. After testing, the first was delivered to Jellinek on December 22, 1900. Jellinek continued to make suggestions for changes to the model and obtained good results racing the automobile in the next few years, encouraging DMG to engage in commercial production of automobiles, which they did in 1902.

Benz countered with ''Parsifil'', introduced in 1903 with a vertical twin engine that achieved a top speed of . Then, without consulting Benz, the other directors hired some French designers. France was a country with an extensive automobile industry based on Maybach's creations. Because of this action, after difficult discussions, Karl Benz announced his retirement from design management on January 24, 1903, although he remained as director on the Board of Management through its merger with DMG in 1926 and, remained on the board of the new Daimler-Benz corporation until his death in 1929.

Benz's sons Eugen and Richard left Benz & Cie. in 1903, but Richard returned to the company in 1904 as the designer of passenger vehicles.

That year, sales of Benz & Cie. reached 3,480 automobiles, and the company remained the leading manufacturer of automobiles.

Along with continuing as a director of Benz & Cie., Karl Benz would soon found another company, ''C. Benz Söhnewith'' (with his son Eugen and closely held within the family), a privately held company for manufacturing automobiles. The brand name used the first initial of the French variant of Benz's first name, "Carl".

Blitzen Benz

In 1909, the ''Blitzen Benz'' was built in Mannheim by Benz & Cie. The bird-beaked vehicle had a 21.5-liter (1312ci), engine, and on November 9, 1909 in the hands of Victor Hémery of France, the land speed racer at Brooklands, set a record of 226.91 km/h (141.94 mph), said to be "faster than any plane, train, or automobile" at the time, a record that was not exceeded for ten years by any other vehicle. It was transported to several countries, including the United States, to establish multiple records of this achievement.

Benz Söhne (1906–1923)

Karl Benz, Bertha Benz, and their son, Eugen, moved 10 km east of Mannheim to live in nearby Ladenburg, and solely with their own capital, founded the private company, C. Benz Sons (German: ''Benz Söhne'') in 1906, producing automobiles and gas engines. The latter type was replaced by petrol engines because lack of demand.

This company never issued stocks publicly, building its own line of automobiles independently from Benz & Cie., which was located in Mannheim. The ''Benz Sons'' automobiles were of good quality and became popular in London as taxis.

In 1912, Karl Benz liquidated all of his shares in Benz Sons and left the family-held company in Ladenburg to Eugen and Richard, but he remained as a director of Benz & Cie.

During a birthday celebration for him in his home town of Karlsruhe on November 25, 1914, the seventy-year-old Karl Benz was awarded an honorary doctorate by his alma mater, the ''Karlsruhe University'', thereby becoming—Dr. Ing. h. c. Karl Benz.

Almost from the very beginning of the production of automobiles, participation in sports car racing became a major method to gain publicity for manufacturers. At first, the production models were raced and the Benz ''Velo'' participated in the first automobile race: Paris to Rouen 1894. Later, investment in developing racecars for motorsports produced returns through sales generated by the association of the name of the automobile with the winners. Unique race vehicles were built at the time, as seen in the photograph here of the Benz, the first mid-engine and aerodynamically designed, ''Tropfenwagen'', a "teardrop" body introduced at the 1923 European Grand Prix at Monza.

In the last production year of the ''Benz Sons'' company, 1923, three hundred and fifty units were built. During the following year, 1924, Karl Benz built two additional 8/25 hp units of the automobile manufactured by this company, tailored for his personal use, which he never sold; they are still preserved.

Toward ''Daimler-Benz'' and the first ''Mercedes-Benz'' in 1926

The German economic crisis worsened. In 1923 ''Benz & Cie.'' produced only 1,382 units in Mannheim, and ''DMG'' made only 1,020 in Stuttgart. The average cost of an automobile was 25 million marks because of rapid inflation. Negotiations between the two companies resumed and in 1924 they signed an "Agreement of Mutual Interest" valid until the year 2000. Both enterprises standardized design, production, purchasing, sales, and advertising—marketing their automobile models jointly—although keeping their respective brands.

On June 28, 1926, Benz & Cie. and DMG finally merged as the ''Daimler-Benz'' company, baptizing all of its automobiles, ''Mercedes Benz'', honoring the most important model of the DMG automobiles, the 1902 ''Mercedes 35 hp'', along with the Benz name. The name of that DMG model had been selected after ten-year-old Mercédès Jellinek, the daughter of Emil Jellinek who had set the specifications for the new model. Between 1900 and 1909 he was a member of DMG's board of management and long before the merger Jellinek had resigned.

Karl Benz was a member of the new ''Daimler Benz'' board of management for the remainder of his life. A new logo was created, consisting of a three pointed star (representing Daimler's motto: ''"engines for land, air, and water"'') surrounded by traditional laurels from the Benz logo, and the brand of all of its automobiles was labeled ''Mercedes Benz''. Model names would follow the brand name in the same convention as today.

The next year, 1927, the number of units sold ''tripled'' to 7,918 and the diesel line was launched for truck production. In 1928 the ''Mercedes-Benz SSK'' was presented.

On April 4, 1929, Karl Benz died at home in Ladenburg at the age of eighty-four from a bronchial inflammation. Until her death on May 5, 1944, Bertha Benz continued to reside in their last home. Members of the family resided in the home for thirty more years. The Benz home now has been designated as historic and is used as a scientific meeting facility for a nonprofit foundation, the ''Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz Foundation'', that honors both Bertha and Karl Benz for their roles in the history of automobiles.

In popular culture

In 2011 a dramatized television movie about the life of Karl and Bertha Benz was made named ''Carl & Bertha'' which premiered on 11 May and was aired by Das Erste on 23 May. A trailer of the movie and a "making of" special were released on YouTube.

See also

Benz (unit)

Bertha Benz, his wife and automotive pioneer

Bertha Benz Memorial Route

German inventors and discoverers

History of the internal combustion engine

Notes

References

(autobiography) :''The life of a German inventor: my memories / Karl Benz'' (first edition) (bibrec) :''The life of a German inventor; memories of an octogenarian''

Elis, Angela: ''Mein Traum ist länger als die Nacht. Wie Bertha Benz ihren Mann zu Weltruhm fuhr.'' Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-455-50146-9

:''My dream is longer than the night. How Bertha Benz drove her husband to worldwide fame'' Mercedes-Benz AG (Hrsg.), ''Benz & Cie.: Zum 150. Geburtstag von Karl Benz'', Motorbuch Verlag: Stuttgart, 1994 1. Aufl. 296 S., 492 Abb., 124 in Farbe, ISBN 3-613-01643-5, (biography) :''Benz & Cie.: On the Occasion of the 150th Birthday of Karl Benz'' :''Two men - one star: Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz in pictures, data and documents'' (biography) Image of cover. :''Carl Benz: a Baden history; the vision of the "horseless car" changes the world'' :''Karl Benz : A pioneer of motorization''

External links

Brief biographies of Karl Benz and Bertha Benz, with portraits, an extensive archive, and detailed histories presented at the Mercedes-Benz Museum.

Mercedes-Benz corporate archives , company archives , history , media management archives , and publications

copies of the honorary doctorate and Baden State medal in gold, both awarded to Karl Benz in his lifetime.

Das Automuseum Dr. Carl Benz in der alten Benz Fabrik is the ''Dr. Carl Benz Auto Museum'' created by a private group in 1996 in a former Benz factory for an ancillary business founded with his sons in Ladenburg, which was separate from his major companies. The company opened in 1906 and closed in 1923, the site has a description of this museum and contemporary photographs with "C. Benz SÖHNE KG" painted on the building, which contains historical photographs, some restored automobiles, and a chronology of the life of Karl Benz

Karl Benz on 3-wheelers.com

Bertha Benz Memorial Route

Prof. John H. Lienhard on BERTHA Benz's RIDE

The Karl Benz family grave site in Ladenburg The urn contains the ashes of their son, Richard Benz, and the inscription on the gravestone reads:

:Dr. Ing. h. c. Karl Benz

:Geb. 26. Nov. 1844 :Gest. 4. April 1929

:Bertha Benz :Geb. Ringer

:Geb. 3. Mai 1849 :Gest. 4. Mai 1944

The Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz Foundation founded in 1986 at the last residence of Bertha and Karl Benz in Ladenburg.

Category:1844 births Category:1929 deaths Category:Automotive pioneers Category:Benz vehicles Category:Mercedes-Benz vehicles Category:German inventors Category:German engineers Category:German founders of automobile manufacturers Category:German mechanical engineers Category:People associated with the internal combustion engine Category:People from Karlsruhe Category:People from the Grand Duchy of Baden Category:Karlsruhe Institute of Technology alumni

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A centenarian is a person who lives to or beyond the age of 100 years. Because current average global life expectancies are less than 100, the term is invariably associated with longevity. A supercentenarian is a person who has lived to the age of 110 or more, something only achieved by about one in 1,000 centenarians. Even rarer is a person who has lived to age 115; , there are only 27 people in recorded history who have indisputably reached this age. In 2009, the United Nations estimated that there were 455,000 living centenarians worldwide.

Current incidence

The United States currently has the greatest number of centenarians of any nation, estimated at 70,490 on September 1, 2010. This corresponds to a national incidence of one centenarian per 4,400 people.

Japan has the second-largest number of centenarians, with an estimated 47,756 as of September 2011. Japan started its surveys in 1963, at which time the number of Japanese centenarians was found to be 153. This number surpassed the 10,000 mark in 1998, 20,000 in 2003, and 40,000 in 2009. According to a UN Demographic survey, Japan is expected to have 272,000 centenarians by 2050. However, some sources suggest that the number could be closer to 1 million. Many experts attribute Japan's high life expectancy to the Japanese diet, which is particularly low in refined simple carbohydrates, and to hygienic practices. In addition, the number of centenarians in relation to the total population was, in September 2010, 114% higher in Shimane Prefecture than the ratio for the whole of Japan. This ratio was also 92% higher in Okinawa Prefecture. In addition to diet, there are four other factors that have been found to increase the life expectancy for Okinawans, as noted later in the "research into centenarians" section of this article. The incidence of centenarians in Japan was one per 3,522 people in 2008, although Okinawa again exceeded this average, with one per 1,838 people in 2006.

Centenarian controversy in Japan

The number of Japanese centenarians was called into question in 2010, following a series of reports showing that hundreds of thousands of elderly people had gone "missing" in the country. The deaths of many centenarians had not been reported, casting doubt on the country's reputation for having a large population of centenarians.

In July 2010, a centenarian listed as the oldest living male in Tokyo, registered to be aged 111, was found to have died some 30 years before; his body was found mummified in its bed, resulting in a police investigation into centenarians listed over the age of 105. Soon after the discovery, the Japanese police further found that at least 200 other Japanese centenarians were missing, with the total likely to rise amid a nationwide search that began in early August 2010. In one case, the remains of a mother thought to be 104 had been stuffed into her son's backpack for nearly a decade.

There are growing concerns that Japan's welfare system can be exploited by unscrupulous family members keen to continue receiving benefits after the pensioners die. In one case, a man received around 9.5 million yen in pension payments despite his wife having died six years previously.

Centenarian populations

The total number of centenarians in the world remains uncertain. It has been estimated by the Population Division of the United Nations as 23,000 in 1950, 110,000 in 1990, 150,000 in 1995, 209,000 in 2000 and 324,000 in 2005. There were an estimated 455,000 centenarians in the world in 2009. However, these estimates do not take into account the recent downward adjustments of national estimates made by several countries, such as the United States. The following table lists estimated centenarian populations by country, including both the latest and the earliest known estimates, where available.

{|class="wikitable" |- !Country !! Latest estimate (year) !! Earliest estimate (year) |- |Argentina|| 3,487 (2010 census)|| - |- |Australia|| 4,252 (30 June 2011) || 203 (30 June 1971) |- |Belgium|| 1,559 (1 January 2010) || 546 (1990) |- |Brazil|| 23,760 (17 September 2010) || 13.865 (1991) |- |Canada|| 7,569 (1 July 2011) || 3,125 (2001) |- |China || Various estimates: 17,800 (2007); 48,921 (1 July 2011)|| - |- |Czech Republic || 625 (30 Sept. 2011) || - |- |France|| 17,564 (1 January 2012) || 7,754 (1 January 1999) |- |Germany||8,839 (2006)||232 (1885) |- |Hungary||799 (2009)||227 (1990) |- |Italy || 6,313 (2001) || - |- |Japan || 44,449 (September 2010) || 155 (1960) |- |Netherlands|| 1,743 (2010) || 10 (1900) |- |Peru|| 1,682 (7 February 2011) || - |- |Poland|| 2,414 (25 July 2009)|| 500 (1970) |- |South Korea|| 961 (2005) || - |- |Spain || 5,891 (1 January 2009)|| - |- |Sweden|| 1500 (2009)|| - |- |Switzerland || 796 (2000)|| 10 (1860) |- |UK || 12,640 (mid-2010) || 102 (1911) |- |USA|| 70,490 (September 2010)|| 2,300 (1950) |}

Traditions

In many countries, people receive a gift or congratulations on their 100th birthday. In the United States, centenarians traditionally receive a letter from the President, congratulating them for their longevity. NBC's ''The Today Show'' show has also named new centenarians on air since 1983. In the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth Realms, the Queen sends greetings (formerly as a telegram) on the 100th birthday and on every birthday starting with the 105th. Centenarians born in Ireland receive a €2,540 "Centenarians' Bounty" and a letter from the President of Ireland, even if they are resident abroad. Japanese centenarians receive a silver cup and a certificate from the Prime Minister of Japan upon their 100th birthday, honouring them for their longevity and prosperity in their lives. Swedish centenarians receive a telegram from the King and Queen of Sweden. Centenarians born in Italy receive a letter from the President of Italy. In Japan, a "National Respect for the Aged Day" has been celebrated every September since 1966.

An aspect of blessing in many cultures is to offer a wish that the recipient lives to 100. Among Hindus, people who touch the feet of elders are often blessed with "May you live a hundred years". In Sweden, the traditional birthday song states, ''May he/she live for one hundred years.'' In Judaism, the term ''May you live to be 120 years old'' is a common blessing. In Poland, ''Sto lat'', a wish to live a hundred years, is a traditional form of praise and good wishes, and the song "sto lat, sto lat" is sang on the occasion of the birthday celebrations--arguably, it is the most popular song in Poland and among Poles around the globe. Chinese emperors were hailed to live ten thousand years, while empresses were hailed to live a thousand years. In Italy, "A hundred of these days!" (''cento di questi giorni'') is an augury for birthdays, to live to celebrate 100 more birthdays. Some Italians say "Cent'anni!", which means "a hundred years", in that they wish that they could all live happily for a hundred years. In Greece, wishing someone Happy Birthday ends with the expression ''να τα εκατοστήσεις'' (''na ta ekatostisis''), which can be loosely translated as "may you make it one hundred birthdays".

Centenarians in ancient times

While the density of centenarians per capita was much less in ancient times than today, the data suggest that reaching the age of 100 was not unheard of. However, ancient demographics are biased in favor of wealthy or powerful individuals rather than the ordinary person. Grmek and Gourevitch speculate that during the Classical Greek Period, anyone who made it past the age of five years — surviving all the common childhood illness of that day — had a reasonable chance of living to a ripe old age. Life expectancy at 400 B.C. was estimated to be around 30 years of age. One demographer of ancient civilizations reported that Greek men lived to 45 years (based on a sample size of 91), while women lived to 36.2 years (based on a sample size of 55). Curiously, the gender statistics are inverted compared to today, since child-birth was a much more traumatic experience at that time than now, and it certainly skewed female statistics downward. It was common for average citizens to take great care in their hygiene (sanitation), Mediterranean diet (fish, figs, olive oil, wine, etc.), and exercise program (sports/gymnasium), although there was much more male trauma per capita than today, due to military service being virtually universal for citizens. This also biased the statistics for men downward.

Diogenes Laertius (c. 250) gives one of the earliest references regarding (''plausible'' centenarian) longevity given by a scientist, the astronomer Hipparchus of Nicea (c. 185 – c. 120 B.C.), who, according to the doxographer, ''assured'' that the philosopher Democritus of Abdera (c. 470/460 – c. 370/360 B.C.) lived 109 years. All other accounts about Democritus given by the ancients appear to agree on the fact that the philosopher lived over 100 years. Such longevity would not be dramatically out of line with that of other ancient Greek philosophers thought to have lived beyond the age of 90 (e.g.: Xenophanes of Colophon, c. 570/565 – c. 475/470 B.C.; Pyrrho of Ellis, c. 360 - c. 270 B.C.; Eratosthenes of Cirene c. 285 – c. 190 B.C., etc.). The case of Democritus differs from the case of, for example, Epimenides of Crete (7th, 6th centuries B.C.), who is said to have lived an implausible 154, 157 or 290 years, depending on the source.

The sixth dynasty Egyptian ruler Pepi II is believed by some Egyptologists to have lived to the age of 100 or more (c. 2278 BC - c. 2184 BC), as he ruled for 94 years. However this is under dispute, as others claim the length of his reign was actually 64 years.

The Indian Sufi poet, Kabir (1398-1518?) is believed by some to have lived to an implausible age of 120 while others believe that he lived for no more than 80 years.

Ultimately, there is no reason to believe that centenarians did not exist 2500 years ago, even if they were not commonplace.

Hosius of Córdoba, the man who convinced Constantine the Great to call the First Council of Nicaea, reportedly lived to age 102.

The ''Chronicon'' of Bernold of Constance records the death in 1097 of ''Azzo marchio de Longobardia, pater Welfonis ducis de Baiowaria'', commenting that he was ''iam maior centenario''.

Research into centenarians

Research carried out in Italy suggests that healthy centenarians have high levels of vitamin A and vitamin E and that this seems to be important in guaranteeing their extreme longevity. Other research contradicts this, however, and has found that these findings do not apply to centenarians from Sardinia, for whom other factors probably play a more important role. A preliminary study carried out in Poland showed that, in comparison with young healthy female adults, centenarians living in Upper Silesia had significantly higher red blood cell glutathione reductase and catalase activities and higher, although insignificantly, serum levels of vitamin E. Researchers in Denmark have also found that centenarians exhibit a high activity of glutathione reductase in red blood cells. In this study, those centenarians having the best cognitive and physical functional capacity tended to have the highest activity of this enzyme.

Other research has found that people having parents who became centenarians have an increased number of naïve B cells. It is well known that the children of parents who have a long life are also likely to reach a healthy age, but it is not known why, although the inherited genes are probably important. A variation in the gene FOXO3A is known to have a positive effect on the life expectancy of humans, and is found much more often in people living to 100 and beyond - moreover, this appears to be true worldwide.

Men and women who are 100 or older tend to have something else in common, an extraverted personality, says Thomas T. Perls, M.D., M.P.H., the director of the New England Centenarian Study at Boston University. Centenarians will often have many friends, strong ties to relatives and a healthy dose of self-esteem.

Some research suggests that centenarian offspring are more likely to age in better cardiovascular health than their peers.

In John W. Santrock's book "A Topical Approach to Life-Span Development", there are five factors that research has suggested that are most important to longevity in centenarians: 1) heredity and family history 2) health, i.e. weight, diet, whether or not a person smokes, amount of exercise 3) education level 4) personality 5) lifestyle.

Santrock's book also noted that the largest group of centenarians are women who have never been married. Also, people who have been through traumatic life events, such as Holocaust survivors, learn to cope better with stress and poverty and are more likely to reach centenarian status.

In Okinawa, Japan, studies have shown five factors that have contributed to the large number of centenarians in that region: # A diet that is heavy on grains, fish, and vegetables and light on meat, eggs, and dairy products. # Low-stress lifestyles, which are proven significantly less stressful than that of the mainland inhabitants of Japan. # A caring community, where older adults are not isolated and are taken better care of. # High levels of activity, where locals work until an older age than the average age in other countries, and more emphasis on activities like walking and gardening to keep active. # Spirituality, where a sense of purpose comes from involvement in spiritual matters and prayer eases the mind of stress and problems.

Although these factors vary from those mentioned in the previous study, the culture of Okinawa has proven these factors to be important in its large population of centenarians.

See also

Lists of centenarians

New England Centenarian Study

Okinawa Centenarian Study

Oldest people

Queensland Community Care Network, which operates the centenarians-only 100+ Club

Research into centenarians

References

Further reading

External links

The Okinawa Centenarian Study

New England Centenarian Study

Living to 100 and Beyond: Search for Predictors of Exceptional Human Longevity

Mortality of Centenarians

U.S. politicians who lived the longest

Noted Nonagenarians and Centenarians

Centenarian research & celebration

Living Beyond 100 - International Longevity Center UK

Table of numbers of centenarians for select nations, 1960 and 1990

Centenarians’ Road

*Centenarians

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