Spotlight
- unbranded - Newsworthy
Maria Branyas Morera, the world's oldest living person, passed away peacefully in her sleep at the age of 117, her family announced. Born on March 4, 1907, in California, Branyas lived through two world wars, the Spanish Civil War, the 1918 flu pandemic, and the COVID-19 pandemic. She moved …
The world’s oldest person, U.S.-born Maria Branyas Morera, has died at the age of 117, her family announced on social media.
Guinness World Records (GWR) also released a statement confirming her death at the age of 117 years 168 days, making her the eighth-oldest person with a verifiable age in history.
“Maria passed away peacefully at the nursing home in Catalonia, Spain, where she resided for the past two decades,” read the GWR statement, which added that she died on Monday.
On Tuesday, Morera’s family published a post on her X account announcing her death.
“She has gone the way she wanted: in her sleep, at peace, and without pain,” reads the post.
Her family added that Morera told them shortly before her death: “I don’t know when, but very soon this long journey will come to an end. Death will find me worn down from having lived so much, but I want it to find me smiling, free, and satisfied.”
People are also reading…
Morera was named the world’s oldest living person by GWR in January 2023 after the death of French nun Sister André at the age of 118.
She told GWR that she had lived such a long life thanks to “order, tranquility, good connection with family and friends, contact with nature, emotional stability, no worries, no regrets, lots of positivity, and staying away from toxic people.”
“I think longevity is also about being lucky. Luck and good genetics,” she added.
Her birth on March 4, 1907 came less than four years after the Wright Brothers launched the first ever power driven flight and two years before construction had even begun on the ill-fated Titanic.
Morera was born a year after her parents emigrated to the U.S. from Spain. Eight years later, the family moved back, arriving in Barcelona during World War I. Morera’s life has also spanned the Spanish Civil War and World War II.
She spent the last decades of her life in a nursing home in Catalonia, where, despite her advancing years, Morera used X – with a little help from her daughter – to communicate with her thousands of followers.
“I am old, very old, but not an idiot,” her bio reads on the social media platform.
Morera is believed to be among the oldest people to have recovered from COVID-19, having tested positive for the virus in May 2020.
According to the Gerontology Research Group, a scientific non-profit which validates the ages of people aged at least 110, the oldest living person is now a 116-year-old Japanese woman named Tomiko Itooka.
The title of the oldest person ever recorded belongs toJeanne Louise Calment.Born on Feb. 21, 1875, her life spanned 122 years and 164 days, according to GWR.
___
Photos: Notable deaths in 2024
Andreas Brehme
Golden Richards
Richard Lewis
Nikolai Ryzhkov
Brian Mulroney
Akira Toriyama
Iris Apfel
Andy Russell
Ed Ott
Chris Mortensen
Steve Lawrence
Naomi Barber King
Paul Alexander
Thomas P. Stafford
Chris Simon
M. Emmet Walsh
Laurent de Brunhoff
Obit Angelos Baseball
Joe Lieberman
Louis Gossett Jr.
Joe Flaherty
John Sinclair
Larry Lucchino
Christopher Durang
Jerry Grote
Schappell Twins
Peter Higgs
Ralph Puckett Jr.
O.J. Simpson
Eleanor Coppola
Robert MacNeil
Faith Ringgold
Steve Sloan
Ken Holtzman
Carl Erskine
Whitey Herzog
Bob Graham
Dickey Betts
Mandisa
David Pryor
Roman Gabriel
Andrew Davis
Terry Anderson
Duane Eddy
Paul Auster
Dick Rutan
Steve Albini
Jimmy Johnson
Sean Burroughs
Roger Corman
A.J. Smith
David Sanborn
Obit Alice Munro
Dabney Coleman
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi
Jim Otto
Ivan Boesky
Jan. A.P. Kaczmarek
Carlie Colin
Morgan Spurlock
Richard M. Sherman
Bill Walton
Albert Ruddy
Larry Allen
Janis Paige
Parnelli Jones
Chet Walker
The Rev. James Lawson Jr.
Jerry West
Ron Simons
Bob Schul
Willie Mays
Donald Sutherland
Bill Cobbs
Kinky Friedman
Martin Mull
Robert Towne
Vic Seixas
Obit Jon Landau
James Inhofe
Joe Bonsall
Shelley Duvall
Dr. Ruth Westheimer
Richard Simmons
Jacoby Jones
Shannen Doherty
James Sikking
Pat Williams
Lou Dobbs
Bob Newhart
Cheng Pei-Pei
Abdul 'Duke' Fakir
Bernice Johnson Reagon
John Mayall
Erica Ash
CNN’s John Murphy, Lianne Kolirin and Arnaud Siad contributed reporting.
0 Comments
'); var s = document.createElement('script'); s.setAttribute('src', 'https://assets.revcontent.com/master/delivery.js'); document.body.appendChild(s); window.removeEventListener('scroll', throttledRevContent); __tnt.log('Load Rev Content'); } } }, 100); window.addEventListener('scroll', throttledRevContent); }
Stay up-to-date on what's happening
Receive the latest in local entertainment news in your inbox weekly!
