By Tanner Garrity Kane Tanaka, a Japanese woman who shared a birth year with the likes of George Orwell, Lou Gehrig and Bing Crosby, passed away last week at the age of 119, as CNN reported. According to longevity researchers she was the second-oldest verified human being to ever live, and the oldest ever from a country that’s famous for producing centenarians. Tanaka had been in the news a bit in recent years — she was poised to play a part in the Olympic torch ceremony ahead of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, but her family and Games officials scrapped the plan once the COVID-19 pandemic …