The recent earthquake moved Japan closer to the United States.

Geophysicists found that global positioning stations near the quake’s epicenter moved as far as 13 feet eastward! This does not mean that the entire country shifted, but that the nation has actually grown wider. NASA scientists have also found that the earthquake may have shorted the length of the day by a couple of milliseconds and shifted the Earth’s axis!

A man survived both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs.

Unfortunately, this remarkable individual passed away earlier this year at the age of 93. Tsutomu Yamaguchi is the only individual to be recognized as having survived both atomic bombs during World War II. Back in 1945, Yamaguchi was on a business trip to Hiroshima when the first bomb dropped on August 6th. The blast caused him to go blind and deaf temporarily, and had serious burns across his body.

He returned home to Nagasaki three days later to a second atomic bomb less than 2 miles from his house! The explosions caused him to go completely deaf in his left ear. In later years, he suffered from complications such as leukemia, cataracts, and other bomb and radiation-related illnesses. Yamaguchi was one of 200,000 Japanese citizens recognized as having been affected by either of the bombs.

Square Watermelons!

In Japan they have square watermelons!

They get square watermelons by growing them inside of square glass cases. That way they can fit easily into a refrigerator, and you can stack things on them. Square watermelons are expensive though (10,000 yen or about $82). Compare that to regular round watermelons which cost about $15-20 in Japan.

Source: CNN Archives

The Soldier who refused to surrender...

A Japanese soldier refused to surrender to U.S. forces after WWII. Instead, he hid in Guam for 27 years.

Shoichi Yokoi, a Japanese sergeant in World War II, returned to Japan in 1972, 27 years after World War II ended. Two American hunters discovered Yokoi in the jungle in Guam. They turned him over to the police, and he was sent back home. He had been hiding in the jungle rather than surrender to U.S. forces at the end of the war.

Yoichi was living in a cave, eating fish and rats, and made clothes out of tree bark. Like other Japanese troops, he was trained to fight to the death and told that surrendering was shameful. Upon returning to Japan he discovered that he had been declared dead in 1944.

The Japan that he came back to was very different than the one he left. He had never heard of jet planes, television, or the atomic bomb. ''I am ashamed that I have returned alive,'' he said.

Shoichi Yokoi wasn't the only Japanese WWII vet to hide out that long, either. Two years later, a lieutenant named Hiroo Onoda was discovered hiding out in the Philippine jungle.

Source: NY Times