Kane Tanaka, the world's oldest woman, has died

In Japan, Kane Tanaka died at the age of 119. She was the oldest woman today, who was born in 1903 in southeastern Japan, specifically in the town of Fukuoka.

In 1903, the first airplane was flown and Marie Curie became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, just that same year, Kane Tanaka was seeing the world.

Kane married Hideo Tanaka in the year 1922, a century ago. She had four children with him and adopted a fifth. In her youth, she was a businesswoman running a noodle shop and a rice cake shop.

The 119-year-old woman enjoyed stable health and lived in a nursing home where she entertained herself with the activities offered there. He planned to be at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, using a wheelchair for the torch relay, but the pandemic prevented this big step.

In 2019, she was declared the oldest woman according to the Guinness World Records. Upon winning this title, she was asked what was the happiest moment of her life and she answered with a single word: “now”.

Scientists do not know the secret of such longevity. Kane got up every day at 6:00 am and his favorite hobbies were playing a game of Othello, in which he repeatedly beat the employees of the residence.

In addition, he enjoyed tasting soft drinks and chocolates. The local governor, Seitaro Hattori, had a few words on the day of her death, on April 19, in which he stressed that the news made him very sad, since he hoped to see her on Respect for the Elderly Day this year, in September, to share a delicious chocolate.

Japan is the country with the longest people, according to data from the World Bank. Now, Kane Tanaka leaves his legacy to Lucile Randon, better known as “sister André”, who still lives at 118 years old. His goal is to beat the record of Jeanne Calment, another Frenchwoman, who died at the age of 122 in Arles (southern France) in 1997.