Emma Morano, the world's oldest person, marked her 117th birthday on Tuesday in Italy. She's the last person living who was born in the 1800s.
Morano told the BBC News part of her long live should be credited to genetics. Her mother lived to 91 and she had several sisters live to be 100 or more as well. She has outlived all of her siblings despite being the oldest.
She said she lived on the diet of three eggs – two raw – each day.
"People come. I don't invite anybody but they come," said Morano, who lives in Verbania, along Lake Maggiore, per Agence France-Presse. "From America, Switzerland, Austria, Turin, Milan. ... They come from all over to see me."
Marco Frigatti, head of records for Guinness World Records, said people can learn a lot from Morano's life.
"The oldest living person record category continues to capture the world's collective imagination," said Frigatti. "Ms. Morano has experienced things first hand that will soon be consigned to memory, and the record books. She can teach us all a lesson of the value of a life well lived."
Morano married in 1926 and gave birth to a child who died after six months, said Guinness. She divorced her husband in 1938 and decided not to remarry, while living in the same apartment over all this time.
The website said along with her unusual three-egg diet, she also eats fresh Italian pasta and a dish of raw meat regularly.
Guinness said Morano was named the world's oldest person after New York's Susannah Mushatt Jones died on May 12 at 116 years, six months and six days.
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