MemeMachineGo!

A women in San Pablo (4 towns north of Berkeley) has been verified as the oldest living American.

When she was born, on June 12, 1889, Benjamin Harrison was in the White House, Queen Victoria sat on the British throne, and people still traveled by horse-and-buggy.

She was born in a world in which the Civil War was in as recent national memory as WW II was for Gen Xers. The intercontinental railroad was only 20 years old; long distance roads were rudimentary at best, and cross-country travel was still an adventure. The Jack the Ripper murders were only 10 years in the past. Mark Twain and Rudyard Kipling were current writers. Washington become the 42d state that year. Edison and Tesla were fighting the Electricity Wars.

She was 14 when the Wright Brothers flew at Kittyhawk. She was working in a factory in Richmond during the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. She was 25 when the Lusitania sank and 26 as Wilson campaigned on "He Kept Us Out of the War." 31 years old when the 19th amendment granting women's suffrage passed, and commercial radio was born. 38 when "The Jazz Singer" was released. 50 when Germany invaded Poland and Batman was created. 80 when Apollo 11 reached the moon and the first Internet transmission occurred. 101 when the web was born.

We're all time travellers and the rate of change is only getting faster.