Nabi Tajima, the last surviving person born in the 19th century, just died at age 117

Really? I didn’t know that, interesting

All these years I had no idea, thanks celticrose

Source?

Literally google...
http://bfy.tw/HnI8

It's true, but I think it's a silly way to date centuries... Because with milleniums it's the normal way (this millenium began on 1 Jan 2000)

I remember learning it back it high school and I think the utter randomness is why it stuck with me. Who even makes these guidelines?

There were no year "0". When people started counting from jesus birth year (or sort of), so it was either " before christ" (-1) or "after chirst"(+1). So, if you count from year " 1", you still need +100 other years to make a new century or +1000 other years to make a millennial. That's why XX century actually started in1901, or 3rd millennial actually started in 2001.