World’s oldest person who was believed to be the last survivor of the 19th century, Italian woman, Emma Morano, died on Saturday at the age of 117.
Morano, born on November 29 1899, passed away peacefully at her home in Verbania, near Italy's Lake Maggiore, while sitting in an armchair. Dr Carlo Bava, Morano's doctor, said he had last seen her on Friday when 'she thanked me and held my hand' as she did every time he called on her. He added:


'She didn't suffer. I'm happy she didn't suffer but passed away that way, tranquilly.'Morano who was born on Nov. 29, 1899 said her fiance died in World War One and she was forced to marry an abusive man she did not love, who she eventually left in 1938.

She also lost her only son to a crib death when he was just six months old.


During an interview with La Stampa newspaper in 2011, she said:


'When the outbreak of the First World War happened I was in Villadossla and I had a boyfriend. They called him for the front and he never came back. Dead. So I had to marry someone else.


'He was one of here, the lake. I did not want to marry him but he forced me. We lived in the same courtyard and he sent for me one day by his mother. I went there and he said: "If you're lucky you'll marry me, or I'll kill you.


Ms Morano attributed her long lifespan a partly down to her genetics. She said her mother died at age 91 and at least two of her sisters lived to be over 100.


She added that a diet of three eggs a day - two of which she ate raw also contributed to her long life.
She said the habit started when she was diagnosed with anemia at the age of 20 in the wake of World War I.


She outlived all eight of her brothers and sisters, one of whom lived to 102.