Emma Morano

Emma Martina Luigia Morano-Martinuzzi (née Morano) (born 29 November 1899) is the oldest living person in Italy and Europe since the death of Maria Redaelli and the oldest verified living person in the world following the death of American Susannah Mushatt Jones on 12 May 2016. She is the last documented person to have born in the 1800s and one of the last 3 born in the 19th Century. She is the last surviving Italian (and European) person born in the 19th century. Emma also holds the title of oldest verified Italian person ever. She is also currently the 10th-oldest verified person ever. Morano celebrated her 116th birthday on 29 November 2015 and became the 14th person and 2nd European ever to reach the age of 116.

Biography
Emma Martina Luigia Morano was the eldest of the eight (5 daughters, 3 sons) children born to Giovanni Morano and Matilde Bresciani on 29 November 1899 in Civiasco in the Province of Vercelli in Italy. When she was a child, she moved from the Sesia Valley to Ossola for her father's job, but the climate was unhealthy there, so a physician advised her family to live somewhere with a milder climate so the family moved to Pallanza, on Lake Maggiore, where Morano still lives. Her mother and aunt and some of her siblings reached age 90, and her sister Angela Morano (1908-2011) died at 102. Angela and Emma were the oldest living siblings in Italy until Angela died. She then married Giovanni Martinuzzi (1901-1978) in 1926, when she was 27 and he was 25. They had a son in 1937, but unfortunately, he died 6 months after birth. The marriage wasn't happy, and in 1938 she drove her husband out of the house and they separated, but were formally married until his death. Morano lives independently in her house, and takes care of her and the house herself. She said she never takes drugs, eats 3 eggs a day and drinks a glass of homemade brandy.

Following the death of American woman Susannah Mushatt Jones on 12 May 1899, Emma Morano became the World's Oldest Living Person.