Originally posted @ Celebrity Heaven:

YONE MINAGAWA, THE WORLD'S OLDEST PERSON DIES AT THE AUTHENTICATED AGE OF 114.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070813/lf_afp/lifestylejapansenior_070813141651
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yone_Minagawa

This Japanese woman lived 114 years, 221 days.
She's not really a celebrity, I suppose, but she is to those of us who keep track of the supercentenarians. 

The torch is now passed to Hoosier Edna Parker, who as of 8/13/07 is 114 years, 116 days
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edna_Parker

We call this thread "Celebrity Heaven" and the title of the world's oldest person is the briefest living celebrity of all.  Over the past few years most of them retain the title for a matter of a couple of monthss, sometimes only days.

A supercentenarian is any person who has reached the age of 110.  My grandfather, Paul M. Smart* didn't make it.  He died a young whippersnapper at 100 years, 4 months (9/17/1905--1/20/2006). 

Don't count on becoming a supercentenarian yourself.  The odds against you are about 500 million to 1.
:o

Oldest verified age a human has ever lived:
Jeanne Calment (France) 2/21/1875--8/04/1897
Age at death: 122 years , 164 days

Contenders:
Edna Parker (USA) b. 4/20/1893    114 years
Maria De Jesus (Portugal) b. 9/10/1893 113  years, going on 114
Bertha Fry (USA) b. 12/01/1893   113 years
sheeshsu Nakano (Japan) b. 1/01/1994   113 years

The previously accepted record holder:
Shigechiyo Izumi (Japan) reputed age at death 120 years, 237 days (7/29/1865--2/21/1986)
has been disputed, though not totally discredited.
Izumi's birth certificate is now believed to be that of an older brother with the same name who died before the younger Shigechiyo Izumi was born.  If this is so, Izumi would have died at a youthful 105 years!

About 9 out of 10 supercentenarians are women.  Discounting the disputed Izumi,
the greatest verified age a man has ever attained belongs to a Danish-born American:
Christian Mortensen (8/16/1882--4/25/1998) Age 115 years, 252 days
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Mortensen


Source: Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_oldest_people

The oldest verified living male is a Japanese:
Tomoji Tanabe b.  9/18/1895, age 111 going on 112.

Source: The Los Angeles Gerontology Research Group
http://www.grg.org/Adams/E.HTM

According to Wikepedia, longevity experts have stopped even accepting claims of persons living to 130 years because "
"Demographic mortality tables show ages above 130 to be extremely unlikely to be true (on the order of trillions to one odds)."
The oldest accepted unverfied claims:
Moloko Temo (South Africa) (F) Reputed birthdate and age: 4/04/1874, 133 years
Habib Miyan (India) (M) Reputed birthdate and age: 5/22/1878, 129 years
Maria Olivia da Silvia (Brazil) Reputed birthdate and age: 2/28/188, 127 years

The greatest problem until present day of verifying longevity claims has been absence of verifiable records.  Country by country, decade by decade starting in the latter 19th century vital statistics became ever more constant and universal. 

Anthrapologists visiting remote areas of Asia often came back with tales of villages in which the elders were 120, 140, even 160+ years old!  However, there was no reliable record-keeping, only oral tradition.  Of course, skeptics began to ask of these 140-year-old men, where are your 115 year old children and 85-year-old grandchildren?

When an individual or an individual's family makes an outrageous longevity claim, it is easy to chalk it up to vanity.  However, in these indigenous cultures, I wonder if there might be a misunderstanding about chronological time versus perceived time; that is, the elders are not talking of years in a literal sense and there is no mendacious intent. 

There is no proof meeting the Guiness Book of World Record's criteria that any human has lived beyond 122 years, the record Jeanne Calment holds; however, there is no proof that a human has never exceeded this record.  I would bet by 2020 there will be a verified record breaker because of improved vital statistics records keeping as mentioned above.

I'm no statistician and I have not studied these "demographic mortality tables" that determine it is impossible for a human to attain 130 years.  We had one person verified as 122 1/2 years old.  Certainly, every month a human lives beyond age 114 presents an ever greater statistical improbability and living to 130 is most improbable.  However, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.  "Trillions to one" is an absurd ratio.  I think billions to one is more likely. 

I cannot find the DNA research to cite, but in the laboratory scientists determined human DNA disintegrates at the equivalent of 110 years.  Thus, the supercentenarian phenomenon is perhaps due to a genetic anomoly.  Who is to say how anomolous this anomoly can get?

Of note, most of the Top 100 supercentenarians on Wikipedia's list have died between 1993 and 2007.   Few died before 1980 and the only one who died prior to the mid 20th century mark is:
Delina Filkins (5/04/1815--12/04/1928)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delina_Filkins

Again, this goes to verifiability.  I do not attribute this to rising average lifespans as the capacity to live 110+ years is most likely a congenital anomoly without bearing on the health of the any given population.

*Not his real last name, as Smart is not mine either!

my great-grandma lived to be 104. :o

Brooke Astor lived to 105.

There was a man that died in the late '70s that claimed to have been born in 1844, and also claimed to be a former slave that could remember the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, and the end of the Civil War in 1865. Because he was a slave no verification of his birth was kept, so there's now way to know if he was right or not.

If it was true, that means he lived long enough to see everything from the Civil War, to the Cold War :o

There was a man that died in the late '70s that claimed to have been born in 1844, and also claimed to be a former slave that could remember the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, and the end of the Civil War in 1865. Because he was a slave no verification of his birth was kept, so there's now way to know if he was right or not.

If it was true, that means he lived long enough to see everything from the Civil War, to the Cold War :o
I remember him.I think his name wasCharlie smith.I think he was in the news a lot back then.

How long would you want to live?

I don't look forward to passing on (nobody does), buyt I also don't look forward to getting older.  I wish I could stay the age that I am forever :\'(

I had a gggranny who made it to 106.  The joke is the women in my family bury their men, then keep on going. 

https://eng.amomama.com/143862-actors-lived-100-years-old.html

This is a list comprised of actors and actress who are now in their 100's.