Eighty-five years after his ticket was first issued for a similar event, a man was allowed to use it at this year’s World Expo in Japan.
Fumiya Takenawa attended Expo 2025 in the city of Osaka with a ticket that was originally issued for the Grand International Exposition of Japan in 1940, the organizers of this year’s event said in a statement on Monday.
They added that the original event did not take place because of Japan’s “intensifying war,” in the region. The Empire of Japan invaded China in 1937 and four years later it staged a surprise attack on the American Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Takenawa, 25, bought the old ticket in March in an online sale, he told Japan’s Mainichi newspaper, adding that he likes collecting things from old expos and had initially used it as home decoration.
But after wondering whether it could be used for this year’s event, he said he approached the organizers who agreed he could use it.
“This is my first expo, and I feel part of history,” he said, adding that he visited the Czech and Saudi Arabian pavilions at the expo. “The person who had this ticket before me waited 85 years, and now their wish finally came true,” he said.
Although he lives in Tokyo, he said he would like to revisit the expo when he travels to Osaka to see his family.
The Expo, also known as World’s Fair, showcases scientific, technological, economic, and social progress from around the planet. Launched in 1851 London’s Crystal Palace, it is now held every five years in different locations under the supervision of an intergovernmental organization.
The event in 1940 is known as the “phantom Expo” as it never happened, the organizers said, adding that those with tickets for it have previously been allowed to attend the 1970 expo in Osaka and the 2005 expo in the Japanese prefecture of Aichi.
Other people with tickets from the canceled expo in 1940 would also be able to attend, they said.
