Nabi Tajima currently holds the honour of being the oldest, officially recognised, person in the world at the age of 117 having been born in the year 1900. Putting aside the life experiences that her parents and grandparents will have imparted upon her, she has lived through rapidly changing times and the entirety of modern history within a single lifetime, a lifetime she is still here to experience.
During her life she has been on this earth during:
-The Boxer Rebellion
-The first wireless transmission of Morse Code
-The Assassination of McKinley, the 25th US President
-The Death of Queen Victoria
-The First Nobel Prize
-The Wright Brothers first flight
-The Creation of the Ford Motor Company
-The Construction and decades later destruction of Pearl Harbour
-The First Men to Arrive at the North Pole
-The Sinking of the Titanic
-The fall of the Last Emperor of China
-World War I
-The Death of Rasputin
-The Founding of the RAF
-The Introduction of Daylights Saving Time
-Prohibition
-The First Winter Olympics
-The Death of Harry Houdini
-The Creation of Mount Rushmore
-The Discovery of Penicillin
-Mickey Mouse's First Appearance
Then she had her 30th Birthday
-The Great Depression
-The Completion of the Empire State Building
-Amelia Earhart's disappearance
-Bonnie and Clyde
-The Hindenburg
-The First Launch of Superman
-World War II
-The Fall of Mussolini
-The Creation of the UN
-The Founding of the NHS
-Hiroshima
-James Bond is Created
-Stalin's Death
-Disneyland is Opened
-McDonald's Opens its First Restaurant
-Elvis Releases his First Single
-The Berlin Wall is Built
-The Cuban Missile Crisis
-The Assassination of John F Kennedy
-Doctor Who's First Episode Airs
-Vietnam
-The Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
-Man Walks on the Moon
She probably retired at some point now.
We're at a point that all too many people don't reach sadly, her 70th Birthday and here we are nearing 48 years later without even touching on events such as Nixon, the computer age or the fact that Obama would only be 9 years old by this point.
Whilst Tajima won't have had any direct connection to any of these events it remains none the less an impressive testament to mankinds modern evolution as to just how much times have changed.
What are the world events from your life so far that stand out from your experiences, would you want to reach a similar age as Tajima and how do you envisage the world to be at that point?
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