US President Joe Biden is officially running for reelection in 2024 – and will do so at a ripe old age.
Mr Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on 20 November 1942, meaning he is 80 years old at the time of writing, will turn 81 later this year and 82 two weeks after Election Day 2024.
During his first tilt at the presidency in 2020, Republican rival Donald Trump tried hard to convince the electorate that the veteran Democrat was over the hill, nicknaming him “Sleepy Joe” and insisting that his occasional gaffes were evidence of encroaching senility, a fairly outrageous position given that Trump himself is only four years younger.
In office, Mr Biden has not let his age be a barrier to realising the responsibilities of commander-in-chief, undertaking exhausting tours to Poland and Ukraine and to the island of Ireland already this year.
It is certainly true, however, that he was the oldest man ever to ascend to the Oval Office when he was inaugurated on 21 January 2021 at the age of 78, with Mr Trump, then 70, in second place and Ronald Reagan, 69, in third.
But Mr Biden does not even crack the top ten list of the oldest world leaders currently serving.
The oldest man currently in a top job is Cameroon’s president Paul Biya, who is 90 years old, followed by Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian National Authority, and King Salman of Saudi Arabia, both of whom are 87.
Pope Francis, who ranks as sovereign of the Vatican City State, is next, aged 86 – as are King Harald V of Norway and Cornelius A Smith, governor-general of the Bahamas.
Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, the emir of Kuwait, is 85, while Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khomeni and Queen Margrethe II of Denmark are both 83 and Irish president, Michael D Higgins, whom Mr Biden met last week, is 81.
That bunch are themselves only spring chickens compared to the all-time record-holders.
Giovanni Paolo Lascaris, grand master of the knights hospitaller, was 97 when he died in office in 1657, as was Abdul Momin, the sultan of Brunei, when he passed away in 1885 while Enrico Dandolo, still doge of Venice when he met his end in 1205, could have been as old as 98.
Astonishingly, Jimmy Carter is precisely that age now and still alive and well, meaning Mr Biden is not even the oldest living American president, despite Carter’s single-term in office coming to an end 42 years ago.
