A Japanese woman certified the world's oldest person has died at the age of 119, local officials have said.
Kane Tanaka was born on 2 January 1903 in the southwestern Fukuoka region of Japan, the same year the Wright brothers flew for the first time and Marie Curie became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize.
Tanaka was in relatively good health until recently and lived at a nursing home, where she enjoyed board games, solving maths problems, soda and chocolate.
In her younger years, Tanaka ran various businesses including a noodle shop and a rice cake store. She married Hideo Tanaka a century ago in 1922, giving birth to four children and adopting a fifth.
She had planned to use a wheelchair to take part in the torch relay for the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, but the pandemic prevented her from doing so.
When the Guinness World Records recognised her as the oldest person alive in 2019, she was asked what moment she was the most happy in life. Her answer: "Now."
Her daily routine was described at the time as including a 6am wake-up, and afternoons spent studying mathematics and practising calligraphy.
"One of Kane's favourite pastimes is a game of Othello and she's become an expert at the classic board game, often beating rest-home staff," Guinness said.
Local governor Seitaro Hattori hailed Tanaka's life after she passed away on 19 April.
"I was looking forward to seeing Kane-san on this year's Respect for the Aged Day (a national holiday in September) and celebrating together with her favorite soda and chocolate," he said in a statement today.
"I am extremely saddened by the news."
Japan has the world's most elderly population, according to World Bank data, with around 28% aged 65 or over.
The oldest ever living person verified by Guinness was Frenchwoman Jeanne Louise Calment, who died aged 122 years and 164 days in 1997.
France's Sister Andre claims title of world's oldest person
A French nun who recently celebrated her 118th birthday with her traditional port-and-chocolate cocktail is now the world's oldest known person.
Lucile Randon, known as Sister Andre, was born in southern France on 11 February, 1904, when World War I was still a decade away.
She now lives at a nursing home in Toulon along the Mediterranean coast, beginning every day with breakfast and then a morning mass, though her eyes can no longer see.
"She's happy, she likes very much this attention," said the home's communications director David Tavella, adding that a short press conference would be held tomorrow morning.
"But it's just another step, because her real goal is to overtake Jeanne Calment," the French woman who was 122 years old when she died in 1997.
This year Sister Andre got a handwritten New Year's greeting from President Emmanuel Macron, among the many letters and boxes of chocolates sent by well-wishers.
"I was always admired for my wisdom and intelligence, but now people could care less because I'm stubborn," she jokingly told an AFP in an interview for her 118th tour around the sun.
"I'm thinking of getting out of this business but they won't let me," she said.
She worked as a governess in Paris - a period she once called the happiest time of her life - before taking her religious vows with the Daughters of Charity.
With the death of Kane Tanaka from Japan, "Sister Andre indeed becomes the oldest, and by far, since the next oldest is a Polish woman who is 115," said Laurent Toussaint, a computer scientist and amateur tracker for the International Database on Longevity as well as the French institute of demographic studies (INED).
Most centenarians are found in the world's so-called blue zones, where people live longer than average, such as Okinawa in Japan or on the Italian island of Sardinia.
But France, while not considered a blue zone, nonetheless has 30,000 centenarians, according to statistics institute Insee, with around 40 of them 110 or older.
