# World's oldest person dies (Kane Tanaka, age 119)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-oldest-person-dies-kane-tanaka-age-119/963406
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [April 25, 2022, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-oldest-person-dies-kane-tanaka-age-119/963406 "2022-04-25T12:31:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2022, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-oldest-person-dies-kane-tanaka-age-119/963406/1 "2022-04-25T12:31:54Z")
World’s oldest living human (by some margin, I think), Japan’s Kane Tanaka, shuffled off her mortal coil a couple of days ago.
> **[World's oldest person, Kane Tanaka, dies in Japan aged 119 | CNN](https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/25/asia/worlds-oldest-dies-scli-intl/index.html)**
>
> Kane Tanaka, the world's oldest person, has died in Japan aged 119, according to a statement released by the country's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.
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### Author:  [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2022, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-oldest-person-dies-kane-tanaka-age-119/963406/2 "2022-04-25T12:43:16Z")
The world’s oldest person is dead. Long live the world’s oldest person?
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2022, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-oldest-person-dies-kane-tanaka-age-119/963406/3 "2022-04-25T12:46:14Z")
Meanwhile, the world’s youngest person changes constantly.
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### Author:  [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2022, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-oldest-person-dies-kane-tanaka-age-119/963406/4 "2022-04-25T18:08:29Z")
There was literally a topic about her like 5 days ago in here, what a weird coincidence.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2022, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-oldest-person-dies-kane-tanaka-age-119/963406/5 "2022-04-25T20:09:51Z")
119 years old? Pshaw, I have underwear older than that.
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### Author:  [@VOW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VOW)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2022, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-oldest-person-dies-kane-tanaka-age-119/963406/6 "2022-04-26T02:23:22Z")
@kayaker
Family heirlooms? Oh, wait, you are discussing undies. Family hairlooms?
~VOW
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2022, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-oldest-person-dies-kane-tanaka-age-119/963406/7 "2022-04-26T03:20:37Z")
The world’s oldest person is alive.
And always will be.
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### Author:  [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2022, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-oldest-person-dies-kane-tanaka-age-119/963406/8 "2022-04-26T04:50:21Z")
I saw that family picture, when she was thirty two. She looked beautiful to me.
This woman wa born before my grandmother, who was born almost two years later, in December of 1904. But she did live to great age as well, dying in 2012, just before her 108th birthday.
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### Author:  [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2022, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-oldest-person-dies-kane-tanaka-age-119/963406/9 "2022-04-26T05:05:47Z")
My Mom is OLD, but her neighbors who take her dog for a walk have an Auntie who is 102. I wonder how close to the record she is???
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### Author:  [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2022, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-oldest-person-dies-kane-tanaka-age-119/963406/10 "2022-04-26T05:59:11Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#):
>
> I wonder how close to the record she is???
[At 102, she’s twenty years short of the attested modern record of 122 years, and 16 years short of the age of the current world’s oldest living person, a 118-year-old French nun named Louise Randon.](https://www.npr.org/2022/04/25/1094630648/the-worlds-oldest-person-japans-kane-tanaka-dies-at-age-119)
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### Author:  [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2022, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-oldest-person-dies-kane-tanaka-age-119/963406/11 "2022-04-26T13:48:04Z")
I mentioned my grandmother, who lived to just shy of 108. For a few months she was the oldest member her congregation had ever had, but after she died, and a litlle more time passed, another lady took the record and reached 109. The congregation had built a new church in 1938, and that lady had been baptized, confirmed, and married at the previous site.
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### Author:  [@Spiff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiff)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2022, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-oldest-person-dies-kane-tanaka-age-119/963406/12 "2022-04-26T14:08:09Z")
I hope I’m never named the oldest person alive.
Being bestowed with that title is a death sentence, I tells ya!
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### Author:  [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2022, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-oldest-person-dies-kane-tanaka-age-119/963406/13 "2022-04-26T14:28:45Z")
If I’m ever the oldest person alive, I will start to seriously believe in the whole quantum immortality thing.
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### Author:  [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2022, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-oldest-person-dies-kane-tanaka-age-119/963406/14 "2022-04-26T15:49:27Z")
> [@Spiff](#):
>
> Being bestowed with that title is a death sentence, I tells ya!
_Nobody gets out alive_ is one of those facts that can lead you spiraling down into an existential crisis if you’re not careful.
> **Spoiler for \*The Good Place\***
>
> [Dude, you broke Michael!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbcAPxQ3YLA)
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### Author:  [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2022, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-oldest-person-dies-kane-tanaka-age-119/963406/15 "2022-04-26T21:37:49Z")
Nobody ever seems to hold the title of World’s Oldest Person for very long.
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### Author:  [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2022, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-oldest-person-dies-kane-tanaka-age-119/963406/16 "2022-04-26T22:48:11Z")
Any idea what she died of?
(Yes, I’m guessing “old age”, but maybe it was a runaway fruit cart that ran her over, or something like that. Never hurts to ask)
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### Author:  [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2022, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-oldest-person-dies-kane-tanaka-age-119/963406/17 "2022-04-27T00:51:45Z")
Tanaka’s general health:
“During her life, she suffered from a number of health issues, and had several operations, including surgeries for cataracts and colorectal cancer, but lived ‘peacefully’ in her final years.” [https://web.archive.org/web/20220425101320/https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/breaking-worlds-oldest-person-kane-26789849](https://web.archive.org/web/20220425101320/https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/breaking-worlds-oldest-person-kane-26789849)
Cause of death:
Local officials said Tanaka died of old age in hospital in Fukuoka city, western Japan, on Tuesday last week. . . . According to social media posts made by Tanaka’s family on 13 April, she had been “hospitalised and discharged repeatedly”.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20220425102051/https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/japan/kane-tanaka-oldest-person-death-age-b2064718.html](https://web.archive.org/web/20220425102051/https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/japan/kane-tanaka-oldest-person-death-age-b2064718.html)
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### Author:  [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2022, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-oldest-person-dies-kane-tanaka-age-119/963406/18 "2022-04-27T14:22:28Z")
> [@gkster](#):
>
> Local officials said Tanaka died of old age in hospital in Fukuoka city, western Japan, on Tuesday last week. . .
The oldest woman in the world died of old age?? That sounds suspiciously like some local officials were just phoning it in.
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### Author:  [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2022, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-oldest-person-dies-kane-tanaka-age-119/963406/19 "2022-04-27T21:15:16Z")
I’m thinking of an episode on _Mary Tyler Moore_ where she and Rhonda were updating the obit files for the newsroom in alphabetic order and by the time they got to Wee Willie Winkie, the oldest resident in Minneapolis, it was 2am and they were pretty loopy.
They went to bed intending on fixing it when they got up again but, of course, guess who died that night. The look on Ted Cassidy’s face as he realized what he was reading was priceless.
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### Author:  [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2022, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-oldest-person-dies-kane-tanaka-age-119/963406/20 "2022-04-28T03:47:55Z")
Lucile Randon, actually, aka Sister Andre.
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