Soong Mayling, the widow of Taiwan military strongman Chiang Kai-shek, has died in her sleep at the age of 106.(AFP/ACME/File)
TAIPEI, Taiwan - Madame Chiang Kai-shek, who became one of the world's most famous women as she helped her husband fight the Japanese during World War II and later the Chinese Communists, has died in New York. She was 105.
Madame Chiang, also known as Soong Mei-ling, had lived in semi-seclusion after President Chiang Kai-shek's death in 1975, spending much of the time in her Manhattan apartment. Her last visit to Taiwan was in 1995.
She caught a cold Wednesday and developed minor symptoms of pneumonia "before going very peacefully" at home Thursday night, said Chiang Fang Chih-yi, widow of Chiang Kai-shek's grandson Chiang Hsiao-yung.
Madame Chiang and her husband were once major political forces in the Nationalist government that ruled China before losing a civil war to the Communists in 1949 and retreating to Taiwan. But the Chiangs' influence faded fast as Taiwan shed its authoritarian...