Walter Breuning: American supercentenarian (1896–2011)

Breuning was born on September 21, 1896, in Melrose, Minnesota. Breuning was married to Agnes C. Breuning (née Twokey) from 1922 until her death in 1957. Lastly he married Margaret Breuning (née Vanest) from 1958 until her death in 1975.

He was a colorectal cancer survivor. From March 31, 2011 (the same day as Shelby Harris, who succeeded Breuning as the oldest living man in the United States, celebrated his 110th birthday), Breuning was hospitalized for an unspecified illness, possibly pneumonia.

He died of natural causes at the hospital on April 14, 2011 at 3:30 p.m. aged 114 years, 205 days and was survived by his niece, 3 nephews, and a great niece and nephews. He was succeeded as the oldest living man by Japanese Jiroemon Kimura, who later became the oldest man ever, and was (until Kimura surpassed his age) the third-oldest man in history, after Christian Mortensen and Emiliano Mercado del Toro.

  Media related to Walter Breuning at Wiki Commons

• Walter Breuning, 33° Scottish Rite Freemason, speaks about the oldest fraternity in the world
• Validated Living Supercentenarians Archived 2013-01-03 at the Wayback Machine
• Great Falls Tribune's Breuning home page, with interactive timeline, photos, video, articles, links Archived 2013-02-05 at the Wayback Machine
• Walter Breuning interviewed on KRTV and on CBS Archived 2010-03-04 at the Wayback Machine
• Video of Walter reflecting on being one of the oldest male U.S. citizens
• Great Falls' Walter Breuning, one of world's oldest men, turns 111^{[permanent dead link]}
• Report on Walter's 112th Birthday
• News Hour with Jim Lehrer interview with Walter Breuning Archived 2014-01-22 at the Wayback Machine