Besse Cooper, World's Oldest, Dies at 116

Besse Cooper, seen above at her 116th birthday in August 2012, has passed away as the world's oldest living person. Cooper died in Monroe, Georgia, USA, in the afternoon of 4 December 2012, aged 116 years, 100 days. Listed as the world's oldest living person from 21 June 2011 upon the death of Brazilian Maria Gomes Valentim, Cooper was also thought to be the world's oldest person between 31 January and 18 May 2011, prior to the validation of Valentim's age.
Cooper, who famously named minding one's own business and abstinence from junk food as the key to a long life, was the last living person born in 1896 and the last person born during Grover Cleveland's second presidency from 1893 to 1897. Born on 26 August 1896 in Tennessee, USA, Cooper worked as a teacher in Georgia during her life and had four children in total with her husband, Luther Cooper, who died in 1963.
On the day of her passing, Cooper, who was then still recovering from a stomach virus, had watched a Christmas video in the assisted-living centre where she was living, but later retired to her room after experiencing breathing difficulties, where she passed away at two o'clock that afternoon.
Click for a report from CNN News.
Dina Manfredini, 115, Now World's Oldest Person

In the interim following the death of Besse Cooper as the world's oldest living person on 4 December 2012, Dina Guerri-Manfredini of Iowa, USA, is now the world's oldest person at the age of 115 years, 244 days. Born in Emilia-Romagna, Italy, on 4 April 1897, Manfredini is the first Italian-descent person to reach world's oldest person status in close to sixty years, since fellow Italian Rosalia Spoto became the world's oldest person in the autumn of 1955.
Manfredini, who did not move into a retirement home until she was 110, also in April became the first Italian-descent person to reach age 115, and has been the oldest-ever Italian-born since December 2011.
Aged twenty-three, Manfredini arrived in the United States from Italy on 22 December 1920 on the RMS Olympic, a sister ship of the ill-fated RMS Titanic.
She is also one of the 11 oldest people on record, and until Besse Cooper's death was one of three living people aged 115 or more for over seven months in 2012.
At her last birthday, she was reported to be in good health despite having hearing difficulties, and had recently reverted to speaking in her native Italian tongue.
Click for a report on Manfredini's 115th birthday in April this year.
Edit (6 Dec 2012): Dina Manfredini has now been declared by Guinness World Records as the oldest living person in the world at age 115.