A survivor of three wars and two pandemics, the world's oldest validated living person, Maria Branyas Morera, has died at the age of 117.
Ms Branyas held the Guinness World Records titles for the world's oldest woman and oldest person overall since January last year, when she was 115 years old.
The Gerontology Research Group confirmed she died on Monday, local time, at the care home in Catalonia where she had lived since 2000, with her family saying her passing came "peacefully and without pain".
But Ms Branyas's long life wasn't one without hiccups.
Born in San Francisco on March 4, 1907, to Spanish parents, her family emigrated to Spain during World War I when she was an eight-year-old girl. On the sea voyage there, Ms Branyas had a fall on board which resulted in permanent partial hearing loss, and also lost her father to tuberculosis.
She also lived through the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1920, which broke out just as the war was ending.
In 1931, she married Joan Moret, a doctor with whom she worked to treat the wounded during the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1939. And then came six more years of World War II.
"I have very bad memories of it, some people rose up and started to commit atrocities when no-one was talking about it," she said of that period, to Catalan News in 2019.
Guinness World Records said Ms Branyas attributed her longevity to "order, tranquility, good connection with family and friends, contact with nature, emotional stability, no worries, no regrets, lots of positivity, and staying away from toxic people".
She tested positive for COVID-19 at the onset of the pandemic in 2020, becoming the oldest recorded survivor of the disease until being surpassed by 116-year-old Lucile Randon of France in 2021.
"Life is not eternal for anyone … At my age, a new year is a gift, a humble celebration, a new adventure, a beautiful journey, a moment of happiness. Let's enjoy life together," Ms Branyas wrote on X, formerly Twitter, in January last year.
Catalonia's President Salvador Illa paid tribute to the supercentenarian in a post on social media.
"Maria Branyas, the grandmother of Catalonia and the oldest person in the world, has left us. We lose an endearing woman, who has taught us the value of life and the wisdom of the years," he wrote.
Ms Branyas is survived by two children and 11 grandchildren.
Other longevity records she holds include being the oldest validated person to have resided in Spain, oldest validated emigrant ever, last surviving American-born person to be born in 1907, and the oldest person ever born in the US state of California
Following her death, the new oldest living person in the world is 116-year-old Tomiko Itooka (born May 23, 1908) of Japan.
The title for the world's oldest person to have ever lived — by verifiable age — is held by Jeanne Louise Calment of France, for a life of 122 years and 164 days (1875-1997).
