A bumpy road to 100

On June 15, 1918 the end of World War I was approaching. The University of Wyoming had just announced it would no longer be teaching German as a foreign language, following the lead of many other institutes of higher learning in the United States. The Austrians, at the behest of the Germans, began an offensive along the Piave River in Italy that they would not be able to hold. Also, on that day, Lyle Mackinen was welcomed into the world.

Very few people live to be 100 years old. So few, in fact, that the United Nations estimated in 2012 that just over 300,000 people in the world were a century...