In 1899, when Emma Morano was born, Italy's parliament (shown) and society were racked by debates over public safety, the right to strike and freedom of the press. DeAgostini/Getty Images

Italian Emma Morano, born on November 29, 1899, is now the last living person officially recognised to have been born in the 1800s. Currently aged 116 years and 166 days, Morano was born in Civiasco, Vercelli, Piedmont, Italy, during the reign of King Umberto I.

She's now the oldest person in the world, following the death of American Susannah Mushatt Jones, who came to be known as "the very last American from the 1800s", at her home in New York. The longest-living human ever recorded was France's Jeanne Calment, born in 1875, who had reached the age of 122 years and 164 days when she died in 1997.


Speaking to The New York Times in 2015, Morano attributed her longevity to eating three eggs a day – two of them raw – as recommended by a doctor when she suffered anaemia in her teens, and to remaining single for most of her life.

Life expectancy in general has increased massively over the past 200 years. The USA's National Institute on Aging observes that "although most babies born in 1900 did not live past age 50, life expectancy at birth now exceeds 83 years in Japan – the current leader – and is at least 81 years in several other countries."

This can largely be attributed to the progress of medical science throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. In the UK, life expectancy at birth is now on average 82.8 years for women and 79.1 years for men, according to the Office of National Statistics, while the most common age at death is 86 for men and 89 for women.