Who Is Kane Tanaka?

Kane Tanaka was a Japanese supercentenarian who, from the death of Chiyo Miyako on 22 July 2018 until her own death, held the record for being the world’s oldest verified surviving person at 119 years, 107 days.

She is the second-oldest verified individual in the world and the oldest Japanese person.

Kane Tanaka, The World's Oldest Living Person, Just Turned 119! Kids News Article

Tanaka was born Kane Ota on January 2, 1903, in the town of Wajiro (now Higashi-ku, Fukuoka), on the southern island of Kyushu, to Kumayoshi and Kuma Ota.

Kane and her family believe that she was born on December 26, 1902, and that her parents put off completing the report for a week because they were worried about her survival after being born prematurely.

Kane grew up in the closing years of the Meiji period, which ended when she was nine years old, in 1912. Kane had two boys and two daughters with her cousin Hideo Tanaka, whom she married in 1922.

World's oldest person Kane Tanaka dies at age of 119, enjoyed soda and chocolate entire life

Hideo’s sister’s second daughter was also adopted by the couple.

Kane’s eldest daughter died shortly after delivery, and her second daughter died at the age of one in 1947, while her adoptive daughter died of an undetermined disease in 1945 at the age of 23.

The couple worked in a shiruko and udon noodle shop.

Kane’s husband was later recruited into the military, where he served from 1937 to 1939; one of her sons was caught as a military POW near the end of WWII and kept imprisoned in Siberia before being released and returned to the United States in 1947.

After WWII, the couple continued to work in the store, with Kane converting to Christianity under the influence of US military pastors stationed nearby.

Kane moved to the United States in the 1970s to visit her relatives in California and Colorado after retiring from their store at the age of 63. After 71 years of marriage, her husband passed away in 1993 at the age of 90.

Kane has been in a nursing home in Higashi-ku, Fukuoka, since September 2018, and on her 118th birthday, she was said to be in good health.

Tanaka had been scheduled to carry the Olympic torch at the 2020 Summer Olympics, but she backed out because to concerns about a surge in COVID-19 cases in Japan.

She took short walks in the hallways of the nursing home and occasionally played Othello.

Calligraphy and arithmetic difficulties were two of her favorite pastimes. She had eight great-grandchildren and five grandkids.

Is Kane Tanaka The Oldest Person In The World?

By verification, Kane Tanaka was the second oldest living person in the world. Kane Tanaka died in Fukuoka on April 19, 2022, nine days after becoming the world’s second-oldest verified person at age 119.