A supercentenarian is a person who has reached the age of 110 years. This age is achieved by about one in 1,000 centenarians. Supercentenarians typically live a life free of major age-related diseases until shortly before the maximum human lifespan is reached.
Poilu is an informal term for a late 18th century–early 20th century French infantryman, meaning, literally, the hairy one. It is still widely used as a term of endearment for the French infantry of World War I. The word carries the sense of the infantryman's typically rustic, agricultural background, and derives from the bushy moustaches and other facial hair affected by many French soldiers after the outbreak of the war as a sign of masculinity. The poilu was particularly known for his love of pinard, his ration of cheap wine.
Henry William Allingham was an English supercentenarian. He is the longest-lived man ever recorded from the United Kingdom, a First World War veteran, and, for one month, the verified oldest living man in the world. He is also the second-oldest military veteran ever, and at the time of his death was the 12th-verified oldest man of all time.
Henry John Patch, dubbed in his later years "the Last Fighting Tommy", was an English supercentenarian, briefly the oldest man in Europe, and the last surviving trench combat soldier of the First World War from any country. Patch was not the longest-surviving soldier of the First World War, but he was the fifth-longest-surviving veteran of any sort from the First World War, behind British veterans Claude Choules and Florence Green, Frank Buckles of the United States and John Babcock of Canada. At the time of his death, aged 111 years, 1 month, 1 week and 1 day, Patch was the third-oldest man in the world, behind Walter Breuning and Jiroemon Kimura, the latter of whom would become the oldest verified man ever.
Maurice Noël Floquet was, at age 111 and 320 days France's oldest man on record and was one of the last surviving French veterans of World War I. He is also France's longest-lived soldier of all time.
This is a list of tables of the oldest people in the world in ordinal ranks. To avoid including false or unconfirmed claims of old age, names here are restricted to those people whose ages have been validated by an international body dealing in longevity research, such as the Gerontology Research Group (GRG) or Guinness World Records (GWR), and others who have otherwise been reliably sourced.
John Campbell Ross, at the time of his death, was Australia's oldest living person and the last surviving Australian enlisted soldier from the World War I period. As a civilian, Ross worked for Victorian Railways until he retired in 1964.
Louis de Cazenave was, at the time of his death, the oldest surviving French veteran of World War I.
The Gerontology Research Group (GRG) based in Los Angeles, California, USA, is a global social science organization of researchers in various fields of gerontology, primarily concerned with verifying and recording supercentenarians status through its verified oldest people list.
Frank Woodruff Buckles was a United States Army corporal and the last surviving American military veteran of World War I. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1917 at the age of 16 and served with a detachment from Fort Riley, driving ambulances and motorcycles near the front lines in Europe.
Lazare Ponticelli, Knight of Vittorio Veneto, was at 110, the last surviving officially recognized veteran of the First World War from France and the last poilu of its trenches to die.
Claude Stanley Choules was an English-born military serviceman from Pershore, Worcestershire, who at the time of his death was the oldest combat veteran of the First World War from England, having served with the Royal Navy from 1915 until 1926. After having emigrated to Australia he served with the Royal Australian Navy, from 1926 until 1956, as a Chief Petty Officer and was a naturalised Australian citizen. He was the last surviving military witness to the scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow in 1919 and the last surviving veteran to have served in both world wars. At the time of his death, he was the third-oldest verified military veteran in the world and the oldest known living man in Australia. He was the seventh-oldest living man in the world. Choules became the oldest man born in the United Kingdom following the death of Stanley Lucas on 21 June 2010. Choules died at the age of 110 years and 63 days. He had been the oldest British-born man; following his death, that honour went to Reverend Reginald Dean. In December 2011, the landing ship HMAS Choules was named after him, only the second Royal Australian Navy vessel named after a sailor.
Jiroemon Kimura was a Japanese supercentenarian who lived for 116 years and 54 days. He became the verified oldest man in history on 28 December 2012, when he surpassed the age of Christian Mortensen (1882–1998), as well as the so far only man who has lived to age 116.
Florence Beatrice Green was an English woman who at the time of her death was thought to have been the last surviving veteran of the First World War from any country. She was a member of the Women's Royal Air Force.
Cyrillus-Camillus Barbary was the last known Belgian veteran of the First World War. He was born in Klerken in West Flanders. He served on the Western Front in the 2nd Regiment of the Line for the last months of the war, between May 1918 and January 1919. Barbary worked as a mason and emigrated to the United States with his wife Emma in 1923. The couple had three children. He visited Belgium for the last time in 1997.
Sylvester Magee claimed to be the last living former American slave. He received much publicity and was accepted for treatment by the Mississippi Veterans Hospital as a veteran of the American Civil War. If this claim were true, Magee would not only have been the last surviving American Civil War veteran, but the oldest recorded person to have ever lived.
