What is a Supercentenarian?
According to Wikipedia, a Super-centenarian is “someone who has reached the age of 110. This age is achieved by about one in 1,000 centenarians.”
Someone living in three different centuries
Could we call that a Super-Tri-Centenarian? It wont’ happen again until someone born before 2000 lives to see the year 2100.
In 2014, USA Today published an article listing the five living people that were born in the 19th century. They were:
- Misao Okawa March 5th, 1898 Japan
- Gertrude Weaver July 4th, 1898 United States
- Jeralean Talley May 23rd, 1899 United States
- “Miss Susie” Mushatt Jones July 6, 1899 United States
- Emma Morano November 29th, 1899 Italy
Misao Okawa passed away on April 1st, 2015 at the age of 117. Gertrude Weaver passed away five days later on April 6th, 2015 at the age of 116. She was the oldest living person for five days. Jeralean Talley took over the title until her passing on June 17th, 2015. Ms. Talley was also 116. Susannah Mushatt Jones, known to friends and family as ‘Miss Susie’ was the last living American born in the 19th century. She passed away on May 12th, 2016, fifty-four days before her 117th birthday.
The last living person on Earth that was born in the 19th century was an Italian woman, named Emma Morano. Morano was closing in on 118 years old when she died on April 15, 2017.
What they lived through
20 Presidents: McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama.
- The Great Blizzard – 1899
- Philippine-American War – 1899
- The Wright Brothers – First Flight 1903
- Word War I – 1914 to 1918
- The beginning of long distance telephone service – 1915
- Worldwide Influenza Epidemic – 1918
- Women’s voting rights – 1919
- Charles Lindbergh’s first solo nonstop transatlantic flight – 1927
- The Great Depression -1929 to 1933
- Amelia Earhart first solo nonstop transatlantic flight by a woman – 1932
- Social Security Act – 1935
- The Federal Bureau of Investigation is born – 1935
- World War II – 1939 to 1945
- The United Nations is born – 1945
- Korean War – 1950 to 1953
- Racial segregation in schools becomes unconstitutional – 1954
- Launching of Explorer I, first American satellite – 1958
- Alaska becomes the 49th U.S. State – 1959
- Cuban Missile Crisis – 1962
- Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I have a Dream’ Speech – 1963
- Kennedy Assassination – 1963
- U.S. Troops enter the Vietnam War – 1965
- Martin Luther King Jr. is Assassinated – 1968
- Armstrong and Aldrin Moon Landing – 1969
- Roe Vs. Wade – 1973
- Sandra Day O’Connor is sworn in as the first woman Supreme Court Justice – 1981
- Space shuttle Challenger explodes – 1986
- Persian Gulf War – 1991
- Oklahoma City Bombing – 1995
- 9/11 – 2001
- Barack Obama becomes the first African-American to be elected President – 2008
- Boston Marathon Bombings – 2013
- Same-Sex Marriage becomes Legal – 2015
The Last Five to Live in Three Centuries
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