Centenarian

A centenarian is a person who lives to or beyond the age of 100 years. Because life expectancies everywhere are less than 100, the term is invariably associated with longevity. A supercentenarian is a person who has lived to the age of 110 or more, something only achieved by about one in 1,000 centenarians. Even rarer is a person who has lived to age 115 – there are only 39 people in recorded history who have indisputably reached this age, of whom only Susannah Mushatt Jones, Emma Morano-Martinuzzi, Violet Brown and Nabi Tajima are still living. In 2012, the United Nations estimated that there were 316,600 living centenarians worldwide. As life expectancy is increasing across the world, and the world population has also increased rapidly, the number of centenarians is expected to rise fast in the future. According to the UK ONS, one-third of babies born in 2013 in the UK are expected to live to 100.

Current incidence

The United States currently has the greatest number of known centenarians of any nation with 53,364 according to the 2010 Census, or 17.3 per 100,000 people. In 2010, 82.8% of US centenarians were female.Japan has the second-largest number of centenarians, with an estimated 51,376 as of September 2012, and the highest proportion of centenarians at 34.85 per 100,000 people. Japan started recording its centenarians in 1963. The number of Japanese centenarians in that year was 153, but surpassed the 10,000 mark in 1998; 20,000 in 2003; and 40,000 in 2009. According to a 1998 United Nations demographic survey, Japan is expected to have 272,000 centenarians by 2050; other sources suggest that the number could be closer to 1 million. The incidence of centenarians in Japan was one per 3,522 people in 2008.

The One Hundredth

"The One Hundredth" (also known as "The One With The Triplets") is the third episode of Friends' fifth season and 100th episode overall. It first aired on the NBC network in the United States on October 8, 1998. Continuing from the previous episode, the group arrive at the hospital after Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) goes into labor. Meanwhile, Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) tries to set Monica (Courteney Cox) and herself up with two male nurses, which causes problems between Monica and Chandler (Matthew Perry).

The episode was directed by Kevin S. Bright and co-written by series creators David Crane & Marta Kauffman. The producers wanted to mark the landmark episode with a major event, choosing to bring a culmination to Phoebe's surrogacy storyline. Earlier scripts had the character insistent on keeping hold of the babies, with the writers later deciding it would better off having a sendoff, to keep it dramatic. In its original broadcast on NBC, "The One Hundredth" acquired a 17.7 Nielsen rating, finishing the week ranked second and received good reviews since airing.

Vera Lynn

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Dame Vera Lynn, DBE (born Vera Margaret Welch; 20 March 1917), widely known as "The Forces' Sweetheart", is an English singer, songwriter, and actress whose musical recordings and performances were enormously popular during the Second World War. During the war, she toured Egypt, India, and Burma, giving outdoor concerts for the troops. The songs most associated with her are "We'll Meet Again", "The White Cliffs of Dover", "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square", and "There'll Always Be an England".

She remained popular after the war, appearing on radio and television in the UK and the United States and recording such hits as "Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart" and her UK Number one single "My Son, My Son".

In 2009, she became the oldest living artist to make it to No. 1 on the British album chart, at age 92. She has devoted much time and energy to charity work connected with ex-servicemen, disabled children, and breast cancer. She is still held in great affection by veterans of the Second World War and was named the Briton who best exemplified the spirit of the twentieth century in 2000.

Birthday cake

The birthday cake has been an integral part of the birthday celebrations in western European countries since the middle of the 19th century, which extended to Western culture. Certain rituals and traditions, such as singing of birthday songs, associated with birthday cakes are common to many Western cultures. The Western tradition of adding lit candles to the top of a birthday cake originates in 18th-century Germany. However, the intertwining of cakes and birthday celebrations stretches back to the ancient Romans. The development of the birthday cake has followed the development of culinary and confectionery advancement. While throughout most of Western history, these elaborate cakes in general were the privilege of the wealthy, birthday cakes are nowadays common to most Western birthday celebrations. Around the world many variations of the birthday cake, or rather the birthday pastry and sweets, exist. There is no universal rule about the shape and color of a birthday cake – in recent years for example cakes take the form of animals or have high-quality drawings on them in order to fit the party theme. In India the most popular cake is Black Forest Cakes

Queen mother

A Queen mother is a dowager queen who was the mother of the reigning monarch (or an empress mother in the case of an empire). The term has been used in English since at least 1577. It arises in hereditary monarchies in Europe and is also used to describe a number of similar yet distinct monarchical concepts in non-European cultures around the world.

"The Queen Mother" usually refers to Elizabeth The Queen Mother, 1900–2002 (queen, 1936–1952; queen mother, 1952–2002), who was the mother of Queen Elizabeth II, and held the status of queen mother for 50 years.

Status

A widowed queen consort, or dowager queen, has an important royal position (regardless whether or not she is the mother of the reigning sovereign) but does not normally have any rights to succeed a king as monarch on his death unless she happens to be next in line to the throne (one possibility would be if the King and Queen were also cousins and childless, the King had no other siblings, and she in her other position as his cousin was also his heiress presumptive).