RIP: Eugénie Blanchard

Eugénie Blanchard
16 February 1896 - 4 November 2010

The oldest person in the world has died. ZUI this article from the BBC News:

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.

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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.

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Eugenie Blanchard was 114 years, eight months and 20 days old when she died.

It appears that she has been succeeded as the world's verified oldest living person by Texan woman Eunice Sanborn, who was born on 20 July 1896.

The oldest human being on record was also a Frenchwoman. Jeanne Louise Calment died in 1997 at the age of 122 years.

Mlle Blanchard is the 22nd supercentenarian listed by the Gerontology Research Group (GRG) to die since the death of Kama Chinen on 2 May; the others were Nyleptha Roberts of Tennessee (12 Mar 1898-5 May 2010), Florrie Baldwin of England (31 Mar 1896-8 May 2010), Edna Smith of Louisiana (30 Aug 1899-15 May 2010), Bernice Bach of Texas (17 Dec 1899-7 Jun 2010), Gudrun Omdahl Onshuus of Norway (17 Jul 1899-9 Jun 2010), Mona Agnew of England (29 Dec 1899-17 Jun 2010), Stanley Lucas of England (15 Jan 1900-21 Jun 2010), Eunice Bowman of England (23 Aug 1898-16 Jul 2010), Shika Shimada of Japan (7 Jul 1898-20 Jul 2010), Andresa Guerrero-Ortiz of Spain (30 Nov 1898-5 Aug 2010), Caroline Dott of France (5 Feb 1900-8 Aug 2010), Jeanne Gagnard of France (20 Oct 1899-14 Aug 2010), Agnes Wetzel of Pennsylvania (18 Oct 1899-21 Aug 2010), Katarina Marinic of Slovenia (30 Oct 1899-2 Sep 2010), Annie Turnbull of Scotland (21 Sep 1898-3 Sep 2010), Elsie Ward of England (24 Jul 1899-21 Sep 2010), Fannie Buten of Pennsylvania (13 Apr 1899-24 Sep 2010), Elin Karlsson of Sweden (21 Apr 1900-27 Sep 2010), Nobu Abe of Japan (3 Feb 1900-27 Sep 2010), Elsie Steele of England (6 Jan 1899-18 Oct 2010) and Riu Kato of Japan (5 Nov 1899-27 Oct 2010).

The GRG's list of validated living supercentenarians (people who have reached their 110th birthday) currently includes 80 people (4 men and 76 women), ranging from Mrs Sanborn (born 20 Jul 1896) to Germaine Degueldre of Belgium (born 26 Sep 1900). Five of them live in France.