Lucía Zárate: One Of The Shortest People In The World And The Lightest Recorded Person
Wikimedia CommonsLucía Zárate, pictured circa 1890.
Born on Jan. 2, 1864, Lucía Zárate held the title for shortest woman ever during her lifetime. She was also the first person to be diagnosed with Majewski osteodysplastic primordial dwarfism type II.
Zárate was born in Veracruz, Mexico, and she went on to become a famed sideshow entertainer. She stood just 2 feet, 2.5 inches tall.
Her height was sometimes exaggerated in advertisements for the sideshows she appeared in, but even when audiences saw her true size in person, they were reportedly in awe of her, with some describing her as a “living doll.”
Wikimedia CommonsAn illustration of Lucía Zárate with another dwarf known as General Mite.
On top of being one of the shortest people in the world, Lucía Zárate was also extremely light. She weighed only 4.7 pounds at the age of 17, and then weighed in at 13 pounds when she was 20. To this day, she actually still holds the record title for the lightest person in history.
Tragically, Zárate died at just 26 years old. Her circus train became stranded in the Sierra Nevada mountains, where she died of hypothermia in 1890.
