French nun Eugenie Blanchard, certified as the world's oldest person, has died at the age of 114 on the French Caribbean island of Saint-Barthelemy.
She was born on 16 February 1896, when the opera La Boheme was in its first season and just after the first X-ray machine had been unveiled.
On Saint-Barthelemy, she was known for giving out sweets to children.
Her record longevity was declared after the death of Japan's Kama Chinen on 2 May, shortly before her 115th birthday.
Miss Blanchard died just after 0300 local time (0700 GMT) in hospital in Gustania, Saint-Barthelemy's capital, local sources told the AFP news agency.
She had retired to the island of her birth 30 years ago, having passed much of her religious vocation a few hundred kilometres away on Curacao, a Dutch island territory off Venezuela.
After her return to Saint-Barthelemy, she acquired the nickname La Douchy - a Dutch Creole word for sweets - from the tactic she used to draw children into Bible readings.
"She would offer the children sweets, saying 'douchy, douchy', and the name stuck," nephew Daniel Blanchard said.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Oldest person Eugenie Blanchard dies at age of 114
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