World's oldest man dies at 111 in New York City
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The oldest man in the world, 111-year-old New Yorker Alexander Imich, died on Sunday morning. Over the course of his life, he learned five languages, earned a PhD in zoology, wrote books on parapsychology, and survived working in a slave labor camp.
Imich was born Feb. 4, 1903, in Poland. Along with his wife, he fled the country after the Nazi invasion, and came to the United States in 1951. In an interview with NBC New York last month, he credited his health to eating chicken and fish, avoiding alcohol, and being athletic in his youth. He also had a sense of humor about his longevity, saying: "I don't know, I simply didn't die earlier. I have no idea how this happened."
Imich was named the world's oldest man in April, but at the time there were 66 women older than him. With his passing, Sakari Momoi of Japan, born Feb. 5, 1903 — one day after Imich — now takes the title. Watch Imich's interview with NBC New York below. --Catherine Garcia
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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