How to get a highest field value in a table in MySQL?

Question

If a table "people" contains "name" (varchar) and "birthdate" (date) columns, how to find the oldest/youngest buddy?

Answer 1

SELECT * FROM buddies
WHERE birthdate = (
  SELECT MAX(birthdate) FROM buddies
)
LIMIT 1;

Answer 2

SELECT name, birthdate FROM people ORDER BY birthdate ASC LIMIT 1

Note that if there are two or more people with the same birthdate only one will be returned.

Answer 3

If you want to include ties

SELECT name 
FROM people
where birthdate = (select max(birthdate) FROM people)