• Oldest man in recorded history dies at 116 in Japan

    Kyotango City Government via AFP - Getty Images, file

    Jiroemon Kimura receives a bouquet from a nurse at a hospital in Kyotango, Japan, on Dec. 26. He died on Wednesday.

    By Arata Yamamoto, Producer, NBC News

    TOKYO -- A Japanese former post office worker who was recognized by Guinness World Records as the oldest man in recorded history died on Wednesday aged 116.

    Jiroemon Kimura was born in 1897 -- the same year as aviator Amelia Earhart and the year Britain's Queen Victoria marked her Diamond Jubilee. He died of natural causes in Kyoto prefecture.

    In December, Kimura was recognized by Guinness as the oldest man documented in history when he reached the age of 115 years and 253 days. He was also dubbed "the last known man to live across three centuries," with Guinness noting:

    When the supercentenarian was born, Marconi had yet to send the first radio communication over open sea, Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula" had yet to be published, and the composer George Gershwin had not even been born.

    Jiroemon Kimura has claimed the title as the world's oldest person at the age of 115. TODAY.com's Dara Brown reports.

    He lived at home under the care of his grandson's 60-year-old wife. Kimura would greet almost any visitor from abroad with the English phrase he learned: "Thank you very much, you are very kind."

    On his 115th birthday, Kimura told reporters he attributed his longevity to getting out in the sunlight.

    "I am always looking up towards the sky. That is how I am," Kimura said then.

    According to local media, Kimura ate a three-meal-a-day diet of rice, pumpkins and sweet potatoes.

    He celebrated his 116th birthday on April 19 by watching a video message of congratulations from Japan's prime minister.

    However, Kimura was admitted to hospital last month after contracting pneumonia.

    He leaves behind seven children, 14 grandchildren, 25 great-grandchildren and 14 great-great grandchildren.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

    This story was originally published on Wed Jun 12, 2013 4:54 AM EDT

  • Soft landing for 'human dominoes' in China

    Over 1,000 volunteers worked together to break the Guinness World Record for 'human mattress dominoes.' NBC News Ed Flanagan reports from Beijing.

    By Ed Flanagan, NBC News

    BEIJING – It may have been all talk of hard landings and poor economic numbers last week in most of China, but volunteers in Shanghai over the weekend found themselves on softer ground. 

    This past Saturday, 1,001 volunteers in Shanghai came together at an unused section of a shopping mall in an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for “human mattress dominoes.” The idea was to have people and mattresses line up and fall on top of each other like, well, dominoes.

    Rules of the event were simple: each participant must touch the person behind them and there needed to be a consecutive chain of toppling mattresses.

    Wielding a radio with one hand and clutching his vertical mattress with the other, the first participant called out “Starting!” before leaning back into his mattress onto another volunteer.

    That kicked off a wave of mattresses falling that took 10 minutes to finish. Cheers erupted from onlookers and the fallen as the last volunteer collapsed on his mattress, officially crushing the previous record held by La Quinta Inns & Suites in the United States, which in February of this year mobilized 850 of its employees in New Orleans to break the world record.

    All of the participants in Shanghai this weekend were given $6.30, a souvenir shirt and a certificate of participation.

    “We need good teamwork,” said one of the volunteers. “All the participants from the first to the last, must act like one person… that is dominoes.”

    Gathering 1,000 people for the spectacle took a great deal of organization, said Cheng Dong, an authenticator from Guinness World Records. As well as… bravery?

    “Our volunteers were all very brave. No one dodged when the 2-meter-high (6.56ft) mattress fell onto them,” he said.