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TIL the short-lived Korean Empire (1897-1910), eager to modernize, purchased a ship from Japan spending 30% of its entire military budget. It turned out to be a deceptively packaged cargo ship useless for combat. Japan later took it back after dismantling the military and colonizing the nation.

b9DXE TIL that after executing over 1,000 Ukrainian intellectuals between October 27 and November 3, 1937, Soviet executioner Mikhail Metveyev was given a commemorative gift of a record player/radio and a set of records, for his "selfless work in the struggle against counter-revolution".
jNARQ TIL of Thad Roberts, a former NASA intern who spent 6 years in prison for stealing 17 lbs of moon rocks. He wanted to ‘give the moon’ to a girl he liked, so they stole the rocks together, spread them across his bed, had sex on top of them, and then tried to sell them online to undercover FBI agents
pYN44 TIL The second longest-lived British head of state after Elizabeth II is Richard Cromwell (son of Oliver) whose "reign" lasted 9 months but lived to be 85
OGxb4 TIL that a Japanese pilot - Nobuo Fujita bombed the US mainland during WWII (the only foreign pilot to bomb the US Mainland) and was later invited back to where he gave his family's 400-year-old katana to the city in friendship.
x6mD7 TIL in 2023 a woman discovered a construction company in Hawaii had erroneously built a $500,000 house on her empty lot because they failed to conduct a survey before breaking ground. She wanted the house removed. The contractor and the developer sued her in return.