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TIL that Ishinosuke Uwano, a WWII Japanese soldier who had been missing since 1958, was found alive in Ukraine aged 83. He’d been declared dead in 2000. He hadn't visited Japan in 60 years and had to enter the country on a Ukraine passport.

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B5lb TIL A map making company in the 1930s placed a made up an hamlet (village) in their maps as a copyright trap. Years later the village started showing up on Rand McNally maps. The originator of the map sued for copyright infringement, but in fact locals and government had adopted and used the name.
5YdZk TIL jazz violinist Joe Venuti, known for practical jokes, once called every double bass player in the New York phonebook, asking them to meet with him on a street corner; over 50 arrived with their instruments, creating a minor roadblock. Venuti later had to pay them all, as mandated by the AFM.
8M1X TIL that in 1990, New Zealand became the first country in the modern world to appoint an Official Wizard
QNMYk TIL that Alan Turing, the mathematician renowned for his contributions to computer science and codebreaking, converted his savings into silver during WW2 and buried it, fearing German invasion. However, he was unable to break his own code describing where it was hidden, and never recovered it.
Lkb99 TIL ABBA's tour costumes were designed by Owe Sandström with close consultation/influence from the band, and national costumes (Japanese, Latin American) were inspirations. ABBA had duplicates of each outfit and the backing musicians and singers had costumes, so a few hundred outfits went on tour