The last known survivor of the 19th century has died at 117

Emma Morano, the last survivor of the 19th century — (Image credit: Olivier Morin/Getty Images)

The oldest woman in the world and the last confirmed survivor of the 19th century, Emma Morano, died Saturday at her home in Italy. She was 117.

Born in 1899 in Civiasco, a small town in northern Italy near Milan, Morano turned 117 this past November. She lived with a caregiver in Verbania, a lakeside town just 25 miles from her birthplace.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.