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.

100 Years

"100 Years" is a song written and recorded by American recording artist Five for Fighting (John Ondrasik). It was released in November 2003 as the first single from the album The Battle for Everything.

Music video

The music video was directed by Trey Fanjoy and premiered in January 10, 2004. It placed at number 30 on VH1's Top 40 Music Video Countdown of 2004, spending 18 weeks on VH1's weekly Top 20 countdown. In the video, images of Ondrasik singing and playing the song at the piano are intercut with fictional, idealized versions of himself as a fifteen-year-old boy, a man in his middle forties, and a ninety-nine-year-old man, reflecting the song's lyrics. At the end of the song, Ondrasik meets his older self.

Chart performance

In December 2004, on the Billboard end-of-the-year music chart, "100 Years" was ranked at number 77 for the year, though it peaked at number twenty-eight. "100 Years" was also the longest running number-one single of the year on the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart, staying at number-one for 12 non consecutive weeks.

100 Years (film)

100 Years is a film starring John Malkovich and directed by Robert Rodriguez that is due to be released on 18 November 2115.

References

External links

Five for Fighting

Vladimir John Ondrasik III (born January 7, 1965), known by his stage name Five for Fighting, is an American singer and songwriter. He is best known for his piano-based rock, such as the Top 40 hits "Superman (It's Not Easy)" (2001), "100 Years" (2003) and "The Riddle" (2006).

Early years

Ondrasik was born in Los Angeles, a child of a musical family. In his early years, Ondrasik learned the piano, and in his teens he learned to play the guitar and started to write music. While he also learned to sing opera briefly, he soon decided that he would like to be a singer/songwriter. Ondrasik graduated from UCLA with a degree in applied science and mathematics. While in college he continued to pursue music in his spare time. He adopted the name "Five for Fighting", an ice hockey term that means a five-minute major penalty for participating in a fight. Ondrasik is a lifelong fan of the National Hockey League's Los Angeles Kings.

Career

Ondrasik's first album, Message for Albert, was released by EMI in 1997. Capitol Records then re-released this album after the success of America Town.