Japan’s Misao Okawa, oldest known person in world, dies at 117

The world’s oldest person Misao Okawa died in Japan on Wednesday, a month after celebrating her 117th birthday. The nursing home where she lived in Osaka said she breathed her last at around 7am local time. On the occasion of her birthday early last month, Ms Okawa, a mother of three, grandmother of four and great-grandmother of six, was one of only a handful of people still alive who had been born in the 19th century.

It’s short.

World’s oldest known living person Misao Okawa when asked if 117 was a long time to have lived.

Her birth on March 5, 1898 predated the Wright brothers’ first powered human flight by five years, she was already a teenager when World War I broke out and in her 70s by the time of the first moon landing. When she turned 114, she was officially recognised by Guinness World Records as the oldest woman in the globe.

Asia-Pacific Misao Okawa