Ethel Caterham, from Britain, has just celebrated her 117th birthday, making her the oldest living person in the world.
Ethel was born on 21 August 1909, and Guinness World Records says she is the first British person ever to reach 117 years old. She is currently the 13th-oldest verified person in history.
To break the record for the oldest person ever, Ethel would need to live for more than another five years. That record is held by Jeanne Calment from France, who lived to be 122 years and 164 days old.
A life full of history
Because Ethel has lived for so long, she has seen huge changes in the world.
She was just two years old when the Titanic sank in 1912, and four when World War I began in 1914.
In 1928, when Ethel was 19, penicillin was discovered. It later became one of the most important medicines ever made.
Ethel was 42 when Queen Elizabeth II became Queen in 1952, and 59 when humans first landed on the Moon in 1969.
She was already 79 when the World Wide Web was invented, and 89 by the time Google was created in 1998.
More recently, Ethel caught Covid-19 in 2020, when she was 110, and recovered. King Charles III even visited her in person last year, not long after her 116th birthday.
Ethel’s remarkable life shows just how much the world can change in one lifetime.
SMART Prep | Quick Question 
