World's Oldest Person Dies In Japan

Kane Tanaka, who was the oldest person in the world, died at the age of 119. Tanaka was born in 1903 and survived two battles with cancer and two global pandemics, the 1918 Spanish flu and the coronavirus pandemic, during her life.

Guinness World Records Senior Gerontology Consultant Robert Young confirmed that Tanaka was the oldest living person in 2019.

She married a rice shop owner at the age of 19 and worked in the family store until she was 103. She had been living in a nursing home in Fukuoka, Japan. In January, her family tweeted a photo of her when she celebrated her historic birthday.

"I was able to come this far with the support of many people. I hope you will continue to have fun, [and be] cheerful and energetic," her family tweeted in Japanese.

Tanaka's family said that she had been sick recently and was "hospitalized and discharged repeatedly."

Tanaka was not the oldest person ever to live. That title belongs to France's Jeanne Louise Calment, who died in 1997 at the age of 122. The oldest male to ever live was Japan's Jiroemon Kimura, who was 116 when he died in 2013.

Now that Tanaka has passed away, Guinness World Records is working to identify the oldest living person in the world.