World's Two Oldest Men Celebrate Shared Birthday Across Continents
João Marinho Neto of Brazil and Ken Weeks of Australia, the world's two oldest verified men, celebrated their 114th and 113th birthdays on the same day.
What are the odds that the two oldest men in the world would celebrate their birthdays on the very same day? That is precisely what happened on Monday, October 5, when João Marinho Neto from Brazil celebrated his 114th birthday, and Ken Weeks from Australia marked his 113th. Born exactly one year apart and over 14,000 kilometers apart, the two exchanged recorded video greetings in an extraordinary gesture.
A Record-Breaking Bond Across Continents
According to Guinness World Records and LongeviQuest, an organization that verifies global longevity data, Neto was born on October 5, 1912, in the state of Ceará, Brazil. Weeks was born on October 5, 1913, in New South Wales, Australia. Today, they are the two oldest verified men in the world.
To honor their shared birthday, and with the assistance of their families, the two men posed with specially prepared signs bearing messages for one another. According to LongeviQuest, this marks the first time in history that an exchange of birthday greetings between the world's two oldest men has been documented.
"This is almost like two old friends greeting each other," said Ben Meyers, CEO of LongeviQuest, noting that each man is uniquely positioned to understand the other's extraordinary life experience.
Living Through History
Neto, the older of the two, grew up in a farming family in Maranguape, Brazil. By the age of four, he was already joining his father in the fields to tend cattle and pick fruit. Today, he has six surviving children, 22 grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren, and three great-great-grandchildren. He has often stated that the secret to a long life is surrounding oneself with good people and maintaining close family ties.
Weeks, who celebrated his 113th birthday, lives in Grafton, New South Wales. He is recognized as the oldest living person in Australia and the longest-lived verified Australian man in history. Alongside Hikaru Kato of Japan, Neto and Weeks are the only three verified living men born before the outbreak of World War I.
