Hard fact: Hastings Banda remains the world's oldest president in history!

Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda

Hastings Kamuzu Banda, the first president of the Republic of Malawi put his country on the map by becoming the oldest president in the world. Banda was 96 years old when he lost his presidency to a  51 year-old Bakili Muluzi in 1994. The "father and founder" of the Malawi nation died aged 99 in November 1997. The record he set has never been broken to date, 17 years after he left office.

Hastings Kamuzu Banda's date of birth remains a controversy because he was born at a time when there was no birth registration in his native Malawi. But the biographer, Philip Scot gives February 1898 as the most likely time of his birth. Officially Kamuzu Banda was said to have been born on 14th May 1906 and this date is even documented several biographical accounts. 

Hastings Banda ruled Malawi as a Prime Minister from 6th July 1964 to 6th July 1966. He then assumed the presidency of the landlocked country on 6th July 1966. He lost the presidency on 24th May 1994 in the country's  first post-colonial multiparty elections. Banda died on 25th November 1997.